<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>For the Asking by gremble</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513435">For the Asking</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremble/pseuds/gremble'>gremble</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Consent, Fantasy Politics, Geralt POV, Impostor Syndrome, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Podfic Available, Poetry, Power Imbalance, Remix, Slow Burn, Warlord!Geralt, and navigating it responsibly, because y'all know that's my jam baybee, fanfic of a fanfic, friendships, oh noetry, the best revenge is living well, two cakes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:02:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>53,039</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremble/pseuds/gremble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, Conqueror of the North, would really prefer <i>not</i> to be receiving handsome young men as tribute.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>507</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Accidental Warlord and Extras, Inspired by inexplicific Accidental Warlord AU</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273713">With a Conquering Air</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics">inexplicifics</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is a remix of inexplicifics' “With a Conquering Air,” and if you haven't read that already, you should definitely go do it now—not just because it's thoroughly enjoyable, but because my fic is meant to slot into hers, and assumes you're familiar with the events/worldbuilding of the original story.</p><p>(Though if you <i>insist</i> on skipping straight to mine: the premise is that ~15 years previous, Geralt lost patience with the witcher policy of non-interference when the monsters are human and decided to take matters into his own hands. One thing led to another, and now he's the head of an empire that spans half the continent. As you do.)</p><p>The original fic was told entirely from Jaskier's POV, with Geralt's interiority a complete mystery—which got me to wondering what that story had looked like from his side of things. Anyway, it got out of hand, and a week later I had 30k words on imperialism, impostor syndrome, and the complicated nature of consent within the context of a massive power imbalance. /le shrug</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Here.” Yennefer taps the map—northern Redania, it looks like. “Yspaden. They haven't sent tribute even once, and it's been nearly eighteen months since we took the province.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which we can't complain about, because we didn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>ask</span>
  </em>
  <span> for tribute, because we don't </span>
  <em>
    <span>want it,</span></em><span>” Vesemir points out. “Maybe if they'd send something useful for a change instead of the nonsense we keep getting. Honestly, what use do they think </span>
  <em>
    <span>witchers</span>
  </em>
  <span> have for silks and opals—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Silks and opals can be transmuted into coin,” Yennefer says, waving that away. “And that's not the point. The point isn't what's </span>
  <em>
    <span>in</span>
  </em>
  <span> the tribute, it's the gesture of having sent it. Which they haven't. Which doesn't bode well for their continued compliance in other matters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaning against the bookshelf, Geralt shifts. “Is the White Wolf now </span>
  <em>
    <span>demanding </span>
  </em>
  <span>tribute from his vassals?” He meets Yen's eyes directly. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Is that really a precedent we want to set?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>demanding</span></em>,” she says. She shows her teeth in a smile. “It would be a poor warlord indeed who had to lower himself to 
  <em>
    <span>ask</span>
  </em>
  <span> for that which ought to have been freely given. Leave it to me, my dear—I'll simply make sure they know that their omission has been... noted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Politics,” Vesemir grunts under his breath, though it's more for form's sake than anything else; by this point he's accepted politicking as the price of their new world order. “Better you than me, anyway, and if—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door opens and Vesemir breaks off sharply, scenting the air, a split second before the smell hits Geralt: terror, like a scream in all his senses, and not something that he ever, ever wants to smell in Kaer Morhen. He's already pushed himself off the wall, ready to act, is aware that Vesemir is on his feet too—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Eskel, completely unperturbed, makes his unhurried way into the room. He's followed a moment later by... the source of the smell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A young man, Geralt observes quickly—no one he's ever seen before, well-dressed but disheveled, stumbling after Eskel like a prisoner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For one taut moment of confusion, all he can think is that this man is some kind of spy, or saboteur—echoes of the time Lambert dragged in a filthy, terrified peasant and threw him at Geralt's feet, with the news that he'd been caught trying to poison their wells.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Eskel isn't angry; if anything, he smells </span>
  <em>
    <span>bemused.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He falls back to take a vantage point against the wall and sketches a sarcastic little bow. “Vizimir of Redania decided to send you tribute, O Great White Wolf.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt blinks. Then his eyes move to the man, and he steps forward to take a closer look at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A nobleman, that's plain enough—his skin is fair and unlined, that of someone who's never been made to labor beneath the sun, and he's wearing a doublet and matching trousers of a fine, glossy brocade, embellished with expensive details—but a noble who's been sleeping rough for at least a few weeks. His hair hangs greasy and limp, his clothing smudged with stains of dirt and grass. Geralt can smell woodsmoke and horses, and below that, the unwashed bodily odors of flesh and sweat and musk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>More to the point though: he's a nobleman who's scared out of his godsdamned mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man's body is absolutely rigid with fear, shoulders hunched and hands clenched in front of him, muscles locked so tight that there's a fine tremor shaking his entire frame. Geralt can hear his heartbeat start to pound as he draws closer, sees the pulse in his throat jump, but the man doesn't move, just holds himself very small and very still, his wide eyes fixed on nothing at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt makes a slow inspection downward—and his misgivings deepen when he realizes that the man isn't actually bound, he's just holding himself like he is. His hands are crossed at the wrist, mottled with fresh contusions that are livid against his pale skin, fingers curled numbly upwards. Geralt's attention catches on a thin line of unidentifiable calluses across the fingertips of one hand—a curiously manual anomaly on a nobleman.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nor is this a new fear, Geralt realizes, making a slow circuit around him. The noble's clothes are soaked with acrid layers of dried sweat that reek of a long time spent in constant terror, and even though his heartbeat ratchets up to nearly a </span>
  <em>
    <span>scream </span>
  </em>
  <span>when Geralt steps behind him and out of sight, he shows almost no sign of it. He doesn't turn to keep an eye on the threat at his back, doesn't even flinch, just hangs there with dull exhaustion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt comes back round to face him, and then looks to Eskel. “Tribute?” he asks, a little desperately. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel gives him a tight, ironic little smile that says he's no happier about this than Geralt is. “One Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, called Jaskier.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything he learns is only making this more incomprehensible. Why are they giving him a person as tribute—why are they giving him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>viscount,</span>
  </em>
  <span> ye gods, even those fucking fainting goats were more useful than this, and why is a viscount named— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jaskier?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind the dull wall of terror and misery, something shutters in the man's eyes and he looks away, a distant flicker of shame rippling over his scent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yen's knuckles come down sharply on the tabletop. “Well I think it suits him,” she declares, like she's throwing down a gauntlet. She looks to Geralt, and her face is fixed in a pleasant smile, but behind it her eyes are flashing. “And Geralt, if you don't </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop glowering, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he is going to faint.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is when it belatedly occurs to him that Yen would have a great deal of fellow-feeling for someone in Jaskier's position. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she's right—the man's already in a state, and Geralt's presence is only making it worse, so he steps back and lets her handle this. Yennefer makes a show of teasing Geralt, obviously for the viscount's benefit, so he gamely goes along with it even as Eskel and Vesemir join in too. It doesn't exactly put the man at ease, but the glassy, shocky blankness in his face starts to recede, and his eyes become slightly less glazed as they move between the room's occupants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But even when they're done being </span>
  <em>
    <span>funny,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt is still left with a viscount standing in his office, waiting for his verdict. </span>
  <em>
    <span>His</span>
  </em>
  <span> viscount now, apparently, and what Vizimir was thinking with that, Geralt will never know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck am I supposed to do with a viscount?” he mutters, mostly to himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait, does this mean he's been given the man's holdings too? Is that what this is about? At a loss, he looks to Eskel again, who just shoots him a helpless little shrug in return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't know,” Eskel says. Then, to the viscount, hopefully, “What </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>you good for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question hadn't been meant with malice, but it lands like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>slap. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The viscount flinches, a short little breath knocked out of him that shudders into almost a laugh, as the shell of fear around him fractures and what bleeds out between the cracks is bitter, depthless despair. He bows his head, shaking it back and forth with a brittle hysteria that says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing, </span>
  </em>
  <span>as plainly as if he'd spoken it aloud—a raw, naked display of pain that feels like a violation to witness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A look of alarm passes between Eskel and Yennefer, and she hastily steps forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me rephrase that,” she amends. “What are you good </span>
  <em>
    <span>at, </span>
  </em>
  <span>little flower?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man shakes his head, still shuddering with that silent, bitter laughter, then draws himself upright and meets her eyes. Between one moment and the next, he pulls a thin, false shroud of composure over the wreckage, forcing his shoulders to loosen and gracing her with a smile that's pure dissonance to the despair still radiating off him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I studied for four years at Oxenfurt, and graduated with honors,” he recites, his elegant voice tripping lightly over the words—a flawless performance, except for how he still hasn't remembered to uncross his wrists. “I can play a lute, a viol, a harp, or a flute. I can sing anything you care to name.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The effect is </span>
  <em>
    <span>ghastly, </span>
  </em>
  <span>like sharing drinks with a man while someone screams and pounds from the floorboards below.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I compose,” he continues. “Music and lyrics both.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is... impressive? Probably? An education in music would explain the string calluses, anyway, and how he's able to summon up his poise at will, but it doesn't explain what Vizimir thought Geralt would want with—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And,” he says, lifting his chin and turning to look straight into Geralt's eyes, still with that eerily false calm, “I'm told I'm quite a good lay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm,” Geralt says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because this is... well, it's not flattering. It doesn't say good things about Geralt's reputation in Redania, that they believe he'd want to fuck a terrified, traumatized young man sent to him in chains. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can smell the turmoil rising off Eskel and Vesemir, sees them exchange a look of dismay. Fortunately Yennefer once again takes it upon herself to break the rising tension.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A bard!” she exclaims in a credible show of delight. She comes up beside Geralt and loops her arm through his, examining Jaskier with new interest. “You’ve been needing a court bard, Geralt.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That's news. “I have?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though honestly, regardless of whether she means it or whether she's just saying that to reassure the man that he won't be forced to service the warlord against his will, Geralt's not going to object—anything to make him stop smearing that cat-urine scent of terror all over the place. What do bards need? Lutes, pens, papers, apparently, and yes, sure, anything. Geralt meets Eskel's eyes, silently begging him to</span>
  <em>
    <span> get the bard whatever he needs, I don't care, just </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>deal with this—</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, to his great relief, Eskel is ushering the young man out of the room, the door closing behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A bard, huh?” Vesemir says, rubbing at his chin. He sounds dubious. “Well, I suppose that's better than a kick in the balls. Or more of those godsdamned goats.” He pushes himself to his feet, bones creaking as he rolls his shoulders in a stretch. “Alright, I'll let Jan know we've got a new guest, he can make arrangements.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gives them a nod and then shows himself out, leaving Geralt and Yennefer alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So!” she says, with entirely false enthusiasm. “You have a bard!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A bard who thought he was coming here to be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>sex slave,</span></em><span>” Geralt growls. He shakes his head and paces back behind his desk. “What the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Do these people really think me no different from the tyrants I killed? No, don't answer that,” he preempts her, when her expression says that's </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>what they think. “Just—” He stops, takes a deep breath. “Tell me you saw something in his head that makes this less vile than it sounds?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gives a small, unpleasant smile. “Like the fact that it was his own father who volunteered him as tribute?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Geralt mutters, feeling his lip curl as he turns away in disgust. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's seen parents grieve their children so deeply that the loss nearly broke their own souls in half. Parents who grieved to the point of madness, who would have given anything to have their children back—and now here's a nobleman quick to trade his son for whatever favor he thinks it will win him with the Warlord of the North. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to decide what you're going to do about this,” Yennefer warns, behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt waves it aside. “He can be Kaer Morhen's bard. Or he can be a bard down the mountain, if he likes, if life in the keep doesn't suit him. I don't care. But I hardly think we should send him </span>
  <em>
    <span>back </span>
  </em>
  <span>to those bastards.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn't mean what you're going to do about Jaskier,” she says, and something about hearing the name spoken aloud seems to make his presence there more real. “I meant how you're going to respond to Redania concerning their 'tribute.'”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, coming to a stop. Because she's right, if word of this gets around—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to nip this in the bud, or else I guarantee you that the next round of tribute is going to include a dozen more such lovelies—just as comely as our new bard, just as terrified, and unlikely to be as useful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And isn't that what Kaer Morhen needs. “Stop,” he says. “You've made your point. Tell the king...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He trails off, trying to put his own feelings (still outrage, predominantly, that the man's own fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>father </span>
  </em>
  <span>sent him here) into words more fitted to the mythos of the White Wolf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell him that the warlord was </span>
  <em>
    <span>immeasurably </span>
  </em>
  <span>displeased with his offering,” he finally settles on. “That he was offended by Redania's effrontery in presuming to know what he wants in a bed partner—and furthermore, at the implication that he requires their assistance to procure it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer's lips quirk. Oh, she's going to have fun with this, he can tell, and for once, he viciously wishes her the joy of it. Let her put the fear of god—the fear of </span>
  <em>
    <span>him—</span></em><span>into these foolish old cowards who would sell their own children into slavery.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The day passes, and he mostly forgets about the bard. He has a meeting with Triss to discuss the new batch of trainees coming in; another with Jan to discuss spring acquisitions for the keep. The roads have finally thawed enough that the Trail isn't impossibly dangerous to scale, which means they'll be getting more shipments of tribute in the months ahead—hopefully better-chosen than Redania's.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel comes through at one point to suggest that the bard </span>
  <em>
    <span>(Jaskier,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt reminds himself) could perhaps be assigned to tutor Ciri—says that the two of them had met in passing earlier, and that the young man had been amenable to the idea when Eskel suggested it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which—fine, sure. If Ciri gets along with the bard, and Eskel doesn't think he's a threat, then Geralt has no objections. He's not terribly optimistic about the bard's long-term success, given Ciri's history with tutors, but maybe it'll keep her too busy to make trouble, and Jaskier too busy to dwell on his grief. Geralt gives it his blessing and Eskel leaves again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Privately, Geralt thinks the bard would be quick to acquiesce to </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>right now, desperate and terrified as he is. Which—hm. Could potentially be a problem. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Geralt would like to believe that no one under his roof would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>malicious </span>
  </em>
  <span>in their teasing or roughhousing, would never deliberately abuse someone under their power, but... there's also never been anyone at Kaer Morhen whose position was quite so uncertain. Even the people who came here with misgivings still came of their own free will, and knew that they were free to leave again if they didn't like it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier isn't here by choice. He'd clearly come expecting enslavement, or worse, and seems to still be under the impression that his survival hinges on whether he can keep his new masters placated. And even though Geralt isn't the sort to take pleasure in wielding his mastery over others, there are certainly men who do. Men for whom that sort of desperate obedience—for whom someone unable to say no—would be irresistible. Geralt trusts his people—but his judgment isn't infallible, and if ever there was a temptation to lure a predator out of the woodwork, this would be it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And even though Jaskier obviously has </span>
  <em>
    <span>permission</span>
  </em>
  <span> to leave, he probably doesn't have the resources to—not unless he wants to either freeze to death on the Trail or starve to death in a gutter somewhere. Which means that until the bard either finds his feet in Kaer Morhen, or until they get him settled elsewhere, Geralt has a responsibility to make sure no one takes advantage of their uniquely vulnerable new resident.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A mess, in other words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It occurs to him that fifteen years ago, when they were first embarking on this mad campaign, he'd anticipated many of the problems they would face—but fending off foreign kings trying to send him a harem was not one he'd seen coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A meeting with Vesemir runs long, and Geralt is a few minutes late getting to supper, arrives to find the hall already full and waiting on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was one of the many changes to protocol that he'd tried to reject when it was first proposed, arguing that it was ridiculous to make everyone else in the keep—to make his fellow witchers, his </span>
  <em>
    <span>peers—</span>
  </em>
  <span>stand on ceremony for him, to be kept waiting at his sufferance as if Geralt were some kind of—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“King?” Yennefer had inquired dryly. He could feel himself wince at that, but she pressed on, “Because you are—in truth, if not in name. And you can refuse that particular title, you can be called Warlord rather than King, if you like, but you have to acknowledge that this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>your </span>
  </em>
  <span>enterprise. The witchers have ceded leadership to you, and there's no room for play-acting at egalitarianism. Your job now is to become a leader worthy of their fealty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which doesn't stop him from feeling like a fraud when the entire dining hall rises to attention for his entrance and watches him cross the room with a respectful silence that no witcher was ever entitled to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's better once he's seated and the other diners have returned to their chairs. The noise level picks up again, as people resume their conversations and the servants begin coming in with trays and tankards. He takes a quick head count of the Wolf table that finds everyone accounted for, and sees that someone's found a seat for the new bard at the far end. Their eyes meet briefly, but then the bard flushes and averts his gaze, as if he thinks it impertinent to stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is a reaction that Geralt's used to, given how many people arrive at Kaer Morhen overawed by the Wolf's reputation. And it's still a vast improvement from earlier—the bard's looking much better now, his eyes alert and interested as he takes in the hall and the other diners. Geralt listens to him exchange introductions with Aubry, his scent betraying only the usual level of social nerves. He's still palpably uncertain of himself here, but the stark, insensate terror from earlier has given way to cautious curiosity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well. Maybe this won't be a complete disaster after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt keeps an idle eye on him for the rest of dinner, though most of his attention is taken up with Ciri, who is very excited to bring him up to date on the day's events—starting with one of the hounds who gave birth to a litter of puppies in the morning, and then one of the Cat witchers who showed her how to climb up a chimney, then she snuck up on Lambert and got soot all over him, and then they went to the baths and she held her breath for </span>
  <em>
    <span>thirty whole seconds!!, </span>
  </em>
  <span>a new personal best. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bard doesn't speak to anyone else for the rest of the meal—not all that surprising, with Aubry as his only conversational option—but he's not afraid to help himself to food, and he's apparently recovered from his shock enough to have a healthy appetite. By the time he finishes eating, he's relaxed in his chair, gazing out across the hall with a quiet, unobtrusive sense of well-being.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then his eyes drift past Geralt, and he freezes at finding himself already under scrutiny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, the meal's winding down—best do it now, before people start heading off to bed, or before it devolves into brawling. Geralt motions him over, watches the bard drop his gaze and fortify himself with a deep breath before he can obey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a flourish to his movements now that he's no longer stumbling blind with terror, a theatrical elegance in the way he weaves between the tables and servants; it's the precision of someone accustomed to being onstage, for whom awareness of their body is second nature. He stops a short distance from Geralt's chair, with a precise bow and a murmured, </span>
  <em>
    <span>my lord.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt stands, feels the usual outward ripple of attentiveness, and catches Eskel's eye to indicate that he means to speak. He slings an arm over the bard's shoulders, feels him jump a little at the contact, as Eskel's whistle silences the assembly and suddenly several hundred faces are turned to him expectantly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And why does anyone ever expect him to be able to make any sort of public address? It's about the last thing that witchers are trained for—he just delivers facts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is Jaskier, from Redania,” he announces brusquely. “Our new bard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pauses for a moment, listening to the sweep of murmurs from the assembly, most of which are variations on “a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bard?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>There's mild surprise, mild confusion, but no resistance that he can sense. For better or worse, they trust him to know what he's doing, even when they don't understand it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he still doesn't know whether Jaskier's going to stay in Kaer Morhen for any length of time, or just be gratefully on his way as soon as they can find a place for him elsewhere, but it's Geralt's duty to make sure his time here is free of abuses. So he tightens his hand over the bard's shoulder and adds, in unmistakable warning, “And he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>mine.</span></em><span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier doesn't move, but he sucks in a breath and his scent flares hot, an immediate, instinctive one-two punch of fear and—inexplicably—arousal, before rational thought catches up and it muddles down mostly into confusion. The confusion doesn't ebb as Geralt releases him and sits back down, and the hall returns to its own business. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Geralt says, eyeing him. The man's in a different doublet from earlier, but the same trousers and chemise and smallclothes, still permeated with the dry reek of old fear-sweat. “No lute?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had, inasmuch as Geralt </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>small talk, been meant as small talk. It was the only conversational gambit he'd been able to come up with, but apparently it was the wrong one—Jaskier's expression abruptly shutters, his heartbeat rising and that panic-smell kicking up again. As if he expects Geralt to fly off the handle because he couldn't magically pull a lute out of his arse in three hours.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel apparently smells it too, because he turns in his seat and volunteers, “None in storage. Sent a lad down the Trail for one, but it'll be a day or three.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bard's emotional swings are frankly rather exhausting, because the relief washing over him now is as overpowering as his panic had been a moment before, even if it's easier on the nostrils.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, it might calm him—maybe? hopefully?—to let him do the job he's been assigned here. Geralt's found that humans tend to feel better when they have something to keep them busy, though truth be told, he has only the sketchiest understanding of what bards even </span>
  <em>
    <span>do.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you... sing without one?” he ventures.</span>
</p><p><span>“Yes, my lord,” Jaskier replies immediately. And it's not a lie, exactly, because he's obviously prepared to do anything that's requested of him, but it's accompanied by a palpable wave of misgiving that makes Geralt hesitate. Because if Jaskier isn't comfortable performing without an instrument, then it would be incredibly counter-productive to force</span> <span>him to. And </span><em><span>fuck, </span></em><span>this is going to be excruciating—Geralt having to sit there and pretend like he enjoys being sung to, while the bard pretends like he's not about to shit himself with fear, and—</span></p><p>
  <span>“Sing me something with an adventure!” Ciri chimes in suddenly, as imperious as the princess she is while she climbs into Geralt's lap. He gives her an absent prod and she adds, “Please!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he'd been about to tell her that the bard wouldn't be able to perform until he gets his lute, but at that, Jaskier breaks into a genuine smile for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An adventure?” he echoes thoughtfully. Geralt can see him take a moment to page through his mental repertoire. “How about... </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Ballad of Maid Marian?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Ciri is enthused; Jaskier shoots Geralt a cautious glance for permission, but Geralt doesn't know the song to yea or nay it, and it's not for him anyway, so he just shrugs. He's aware that Yennefer's come up behind him to lean over the back of his chair, her hand dipping down to toy with his hair, the way she only does when she's making a point to strangers about the liberties she's allowed to take with the White Wolf. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt is honestly not expecting much from this performance—the hall is loud, and he knows how it sounds when singers have to strain to be heard over a crowd, their voices going unpleasantly tight and pitchy. Not to mention how many people can't carry a tune even </span>
  <em>
    <span>with </span>
  </em>
  <span>an instrument to nudge them into line, but if it amuses Ciri, then he can—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Jaskier starts singing, and those thoughts immediately fall away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's—</span><em><span>he's</span></em><span>—stunning, is the only word Geralt can put to it. Jaskier draws in a breath and lifts his head, and from the first notes that leave his lips he's </span>
  <em>
    <span>transcendent.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It's a performance, but completely unlike the jarring facade he put on earlier—this feels as though he's stepped outside of himself, into a space where pain and unhappiness can't follow. His voice is fearless, even naked and unaccompanied, even alone in this foreign place with only a small audience of strangers; his control is pure and perfect and effortless.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Who would throw a son like this away? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt finds himself wondering, again feeling that rising tide of bewilderment, that nothing about this makes any sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The song settles into something less revelatory than it had originally felt—a catchy little romp, with a chorus that has Ciri bouncing and clapping along to it by the second iteration, and singing along with it by the third. He suspects that Jaskier might have gone a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bit </span>
  </em>
  <span>overboard in sanitizing the song for Ciri's benefit, because there are some suspicious pauses when the bard seems to be rewriting lyrics on the fly. He needn't have bothered, since Ciri isn't going to faint at a rude word or a mention of blood, but Geralt appreciates that he's being respectful of her age.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this song is </span>
  <em>
    <span>for Ciri,</span>
  </em>
  <span> that much is clear—Geralt and Yennefer and the other Wolves who've taken an interest are incidental to the performance he's giving now. He's singing to Ciri, a story about a young woman as bold and quick and clever as she is, and seems to draw life from her unabashed enthusiasm. He's not faking anything for this performance; he's genuinely </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be singing for her, and the more delight she takes in it, the more he wants to give back—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The terrible comparison suddenly forcing its way into Geralt's mind is his experiences with orphaned children in the aftermath of devastation. How they can manage to stay so strong, behind gritted teeth and white-knuckled determination, and how they </span>
  <em>
    <span>fold </span>
  </em>
  <span>at the first overture of human kindness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Jaskier is opening to Ciri like a flower, with unthinking and heartbreaking eagerness. She's a sweet girl—Geralt knows this, knows that it's not just his own partiality talking—but he's never seen anyone lean into that sweetness so desperately, never seen anyone so desperate to return it with their own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The song ends while Geralt's thoughts are elsewhere, and if nothing else, the bard has certainly cemented his welcome with Ciri. She's effusive in her applause, and imperiously orders Geralt to show his appreciation as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was fine,” he says, because it's not like he has anything more insightful to say about music.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Above his head he hears Yen give a small snort.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has a brief moment's </span>
  <em>
    <span>affront </span>
  </em>
  <span>at that, and then Ciri's distracting him with questions. With the bard's attention occupied, Yennefer leans over the back of Geralt's chair and murmurs in his ear, “You could have just said that you found him </span>
  <em>
    <span>transcendent.</span></em><span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pushes her off, and she chuckles and joins the conversation with Ciri and Jaskier. Geralt's content to leave them to it, listening to Yen not-so-subtly put their new bard through his paces, and—more surprisingly—listening to him hold his own in return. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bard knows how to read a room, that's for sure. His scent hasn't changed; he's still wary and razor-attuned to the people around him, alert to their every tiny sign of approval or opprobrium and adjusting his responses accordingly, but from the way he banters with Ciri, with Yen, someone without a witcher's senses would never guess. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, it only confirms Geralt's earlier impression, which is that Jaskier is abjectly desperate to give them whatever they want from him. Hopefully that will ease once he realizes he isn't in danger of being murdered offhand, but Geralt is nonetheless glad he already made it publicly clear that the bard is under his protection. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer comes and finds him later, after he's seen Ciri off to bed and is back in his quarters, reading over a letter from a witcher currently patrolling in Lyria.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” she says, sounding greatly amused as she takes the liberty of seating herself on the edge of his desk. “The bard is </span>
  <em>
    <span>yours,</span>
  </em>
  <span> is he? If I didn't know better, I might think you wanted him for a bedmate after all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Geralt says, irritable as his attention has to switch tracks. “No. I just don't want anyone taking advantage before he can—” </span>
  <em>
    <span>grow a spine,</span>
  </em>
  <span> though it feels rude to say so. He can hardly blame an Oxenfurt bard for being out of his depth when suddenly dumped among witchers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raises her eyebrows. “Surely you know what it sounded like when you </span>
  <em>
    <span>claimed</span>
  </em>
  <span> him so publicly? It's certainly what he thought you meant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt scowls. “I'm not going to fuck him. Which he'll realize when I </span>
  <em>
    <span>don't fuck him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And everyone else will be able to smell that I'm not fucking him, so if there's a misunderstanding, it'll sort itself out fast enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes a little </span>
  <em>
    <span>if-you-say-so </span>
  </em>
  <span>sort of hum, but lets it slide. “I spoke with him after supper about tutoring Ciri. We've decided he'll take her in the mornings, for history and geography, which I have no doubt he can make entertaining enough to keep her attention, and maths, until we find someone more specialized. And for all that we'd been joking about lessons in court etiquette, that might not be a bad idea either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can he be trusted?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer shrugs, but Geralt knows she wouldn't let harm come to Ciri, so he takes her unconcern as a yes. “He's keen to make himself useful, and genuinely charmed by Ciri. He could be quite an asset, if he chooses to stay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And do you think he will?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Geralt has never been able to predict which humans are going to thrive in Kaer Morhen and which are going to turn around and walk right back out. That gentle, humble Jan took this barren place into his hands and made it a home, while warriors not so different from the witchers themselves sometimes never manage it. Finding a sense of purpose here, he thinks; that seems to be the only common thread among the people who remain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer considers it. “He may ultimately decide to leave, but if he does, I don't think it will be because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn't </span>
  </em>
  <span>stay. You saw him at supper—quite a change from the wretch at our gates this afternoon. He's intelligent and adaptable, and acclimating to Kaer Morhen faster than most. I think he'll do well for himself here—and if, in the end, he decides that he'd rather sing for nobility than witchers, he'll have the means to pursue that goal.” She meets Geralt's eyes. “Make sure he receives a salary. He needs to understand that he's not a prisoner here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt grunts in assent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Yennefer muses, “even if he doesn't stay, this might still be a blessing in disguise. We can see to it that he's treated well here, that he looks back on his time at Kaer Morhen with fondness. And then, with luck, he'll sing his good opinion of us up and down the continent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt hadn't considered it from that angle—but then, this is why he has the sorceresses to advise him. They have a knack for spinning any kind of straw into political gold. </span>
</p><p><span>“Hm. Well, seeing as it was his</span> <span>own </span><em><span>fucking father</span></em><span> who abandoned him here, we can probably do better than that, at least.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Her brows draw into a small frown as she studies him. “That really bothers you, doesn't it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shrugs, scowls. “It's Ciri,” he says, struggling to explain. “The thought of—” He stands, begins to pace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer waits for him to put his words together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, I try to imagine myself in their place sometimes,” he says. “These people who do terrible things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>that sometimes things that are terrible are also necessary. He's made difficult choices in his time. But a man who could just—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That Jaskier was once a babe in his arms. A child in his care. That he'd been given the </span>
  <em>
    <span>trust of a child,</span>
  </em>
  <span> only to sell his son into what he believed was a nest of devils. And I try to understand what would drive a man to do that. I try to put myself in his shoes, and I think of Ciri, and—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He falls silent, then just shakes his head. “And I can't. Because there is no world in which I would let that happen to her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer says nothing.</span>
</p><p><span>“I can't find any explanation, any excuse, that would justify it. There's nothing to make it anything other than the most despicable, most selfish</span> <span>betrayal imaginable. A man like that should be in the </span><em><span>ground,</span></em><span> not breaking bread with kings.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Yennefer's silent for a long moment—reading him, perhaps—then rises to her feet and comes over to give him a kiss on the cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And that's why we're here, isn't it?” she asks quietly, rhetorically. “Why the White Wolf came to be. To fight these monsters shaped like men.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is. But what he hadn't realized when he started was that there would be no end of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer pats him on the shoulder and withdraws. “Sleep, dear wolf. These things will sort themselves out with time, not with worrying.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Geralt catches a glimpse of the bard at lunch the next day, sees him settling in apace—he's found the time to bathe, evidently, and changed his clothes, because the last vestiges of old fear are gone, replaced with lively curiosity and a tentative feeling of goodwill. Yennefer appears to have been on the mark with her assessment of his adaptability. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He would have left the man to his own devices at supper too, but Ciri wants more music, and there's no harm in indulging her.</span>
</p><p><span>And there's no denying that the bard is in his element when he's performing. Tonight it's a love song, per Yennefer's request (and he can't shake the feeling that she's playing some sort of game with that), and it really is astonishing how much intensity</span> <span>he can put into what should be just a clichéd ballad, the resonant </span><em><span>longing</span></em><span> that grips his voice when he sings about love. He's captivating like this, not just his voice but his entire aspect, transformed by the music into something joyous and ethereal, all blue eyes and elegant limbs and—</span></p><p><span>Which is, Geralt realizes, as his train of thought comes to a </span><em><span>screeching</span></em><span> halt, exactly how he'd been meant</span> <span>to find Jaskier in the first place.</span></p><p>
  <span>That the man was objectively rather handsome had honestly not even registered the day before. Geralt had been too dismayed and distracted by the situation to even think about him in that way, and the smells would have put him off if he had—layers of stale, sour fear-sweat beneath the astringent reek of fresh terror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it's startling to find that he's only just now noticing what apparently everyone else has known all along: that Jaskier is a very appealing young man.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's the first thing in a day and a half that makes </span>
  <em>
    <span>sense</span>
  </em>
  <span> about this whole damn situation, anyway, in that it explains what they thought Geralt would possibly want with him. Still offensively wrong-headed, but if they'd meant for Jaskier to become his—concubine? catamite? What does one even call a man in that position?—it raised some other questions. Like whether they'd had plans for Jaskier beyond his initial use as a bribe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's blaming Yennefer's influence for this, and her perpetual mistrust, but it occurs to him that if their ploy had worked, the Redanian nobles would have succeeded in planting one of their own </span>
  <em>
    <span>intimately </span>
  </em>
  <span>close to the seat of power in Kaer Morhen. He doesn't believe Jaskier has it in him to be an assassin—indeed, he doubts that Jaskier played any role in these intrigues at all, apart from being their unfortunate pawn—but if he has any lingering sense of filial or patriotic duty, it could be leveraged to gain information, or perhaps even attempt to influence policy. If, say, they believed that Jaskier might be able to bat his eyes at the Wolf and win concessions for Redania—an indulgence for a favored plaything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(It's perhaps ironic that Jaskier's arrival has made Geralt </span><em><span>more </span>
  </em>
  <span>inclined to burn Redania to the ground, not less.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, the question is largely academic since Geralt's not taking the bard to bed, but he should probably make a closer inspection of Jaskier's loyalties at some point, ideally with Yen there to glean what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn't </span>
  </em>
  <span>say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it doesn't have to be right now—he can give Jaskier some more time to settle in, he can wait until that wound isn't quite so raw before he goes probing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The interrogation of Jaskier's loyalties winds up happening sooner than he'd intended though, because not even a week after his arrival, they receive a letter from the Redanian king asking for an audience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The fuck?” Geralt asks rhetorically, tossing the letter down on the table. “If he had something to say to me, why didn't he just send it along when he sent the bard? His men were here less than a week ago.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer, draped elegantly across the armchair by the fire, smirks at him. “I expect he's hoping that a week with the little songbird has sweetened you.”</span>
</p><p><span>“You are awfully cranky these days,” Eskel agrees gravely, because Eskel is a traitor.</span> <span>“Maybe they were right and what you need is a bard to </span><em><span>sing you to sleep</span></em><span> at night.”</span></p><p>
  <span>They're careful not to make those kind of jokes where Jaskier might hear—both to let him keep whatever shreds of dignity he's managed to hold onto through this whole humiliating ordeal, and because he's still visibly skittish about what </span>
  <em>
    <span>duties </span>
  </em>
  <span>he might be called on to perform at Kaer Morhen—but Geralt has not been so lucky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Funny,” he growls. “But the bard is irrelevant. Yen—have you already told Redania how we felt about their choice of tribute?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I drafted a response, but haven't delivered it yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. So he's expecting the Wolf to arrive sated and complacent, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking pissed at him.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Yen says thoughtfully. “This would also be a good opportunity to find out how Jaskier feels about his homeland. Frame it as a debrief on Redanian politics; he never even has to know it was about him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they send a servant to fetch Jaskier, and bring Vesemir in to be a second set of scribing hands. Yennefer takes a chair in the far corner and weaves a notice-me-not that will allow her to work unobserved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bard, when he presents himself at the door, is palpably nervous, wiping sweaty palms on his thighs like a schoolboy who doesn't know what infraction got him summoned to the headmaster's office. It takes him by surprise when Geralt asks for information on Redania, but after only a brief moment to marshal his thoughts, he launches into an orderly and comprehensive report.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until now, Geralt hadn't known what to expect—whether Jaskier would retain some love for his homeland, however undeserved, and might still hold out hope for reconciliation. Geralt has seen children return again and again to the very people who abuse them, with unending wells of hope and forgiveness that they would trade for love if they could; he had been prepared to wait out the same in Jaskier. But the bard doesn't seem to be harboring any illusions on that front—now that the hurt has scabbed over and the fear has ebbed, what's left is a hot, low-burning fury at his core. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the end of the debrief, Jaskier's nervousness is gone, and his smile is grim when he looks Geralt square in the eye and he says, “I wish you every success in Redania, my lord.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After he leaves, and Vesemir and Eskel have gone off to correlate these new notes with their previous intelligence about Redania, Geralt is left alone with Yennefer, who looks enormously pleased with herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you the flower had teeth,” she says smugly, lacing her hands in her lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She'd told him no such thing, but that's not relevant. “What did you read off him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That he gave you everything he had, and only wishes he could have handed you the knife to put in King Vizimir's heart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He doesn't want to be permitted back into their good graces,” she continues. She leans forward, and meets his eyes savagely. “He wants them </span>
  <em>
    <span>humiliated </span>
  </em>
  <span>before you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt nods, his jaw tight. “We can do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he takes Yennefer and Eskel and goes to Redania, where it turns out that what the king wants is a treaty—the first that would officially redraw their borders to acknowledge Geralt's territory in the north. For the past eighteen months, the Redanian royals have been operating under the polite fiction that they </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn't</span>
  </em>
  <span> lose the top two-thirds of their country to the White Wolf—probably hoping they'd find an opportunity to retake it—and haven't been interested in any agreements that would recognize Geralt's authority there and formally cede the territory. A treaty would, theoretically, mean that they'd stop trying to retake conquered Redania, in exchange for the Wolf's promise not to finish the job he started.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn't believe for a moment that the Redanians have truly given up hope of reuniting their country; more likely this is just a ploy to buy them some security while they figure out their next approach. Frankly, this whole exercise is rather pointless—if Vizimir keeps to his own borders and behaves as a decent king should, then the Wolf will leave him to it, and if he doesn't, then a treaty is not going to save him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vizimir's people have, helpfully, already drawn up the agreement they're hoping he'll sign, and one of the advisers is laboriously going through each article aloud. Most of them are limitations on what kind of naval capacities Geralt would be allowed to develop—because in taking northern Redania, he also took the port city of Blaviken, and with it, an unbroken river route leading straight from Kaer Morhen to the sea. The southern kings have been shitting themselves ever since at the prospect of the White Wolf with a navy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He bites back a sigh, and tries to look like he's paying attention, because he really should try to get a treaty worked out with the Redanians. It would be an opportunity to set the terms for Vizimir's good behavior, and the concessions they're asking for are nothing he gives a fuck about anyway. He'd have to promise not to build a navy, and promise not to murder everyone in this room and annex their kingdom, but he hadn't actually been intending to do either. There's no reason to refuse a treaty and leave that threat hanging over their heads, except—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that when it comes to the question of murdering everyone in this room, he finds he'd rather keep his options open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's been no mention of Jaskier. Yen had recommended that they leave it to the Redanians to broach the subject, and not bring him up until they did. Reasonable, Geralt had thought, but now it's looking like they're not </span>
  <em>
    <span>going </span>
  </em>
  <span>to. Like they don't even remember the boy they threw to the wolves.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Which one of you was it,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he wonders grimly. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Which of you came up with the idea, which of you endorsed it, which of you just turned your eyes away like cowards?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He's been entertaining himself by making eye contact with each adviser in turn, and holding it until they flinch and look away. A petty game, and no real show of dominance, but it mollifies him somewhat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They're talking about potatoes now. Because it's crop surpluses in the north that feed the distilleries in the south, and the nobles are anxious to reestablish the supply chains that have been disrupted by this schism.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is what they'd hoped to gain from selling Jaskier, he thinks. Potatoes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he'd been intending to defer to Yennefer's political savvy, but halfway through a sub-clause on warehouse levies, he finds himself lifting his voice and saying, very mildly,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which one of you was it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's the first thing he's contributed to these proceedings, and it catches the speaker off guard. “Ah?” he stutters, glancing down the line of his fellows for some kind of cue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's eyes trail over the line of advisers, one at a time. “Which one of you chose the </span>
  <em>
    <span>tribute?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He's met with dead silence. They know what he's asking; he can taste the moment when understanding dawns, but no one on the far side of the table can figure out whether or not he's pleased by it. They can't tell whether owning the deed would get them a reward, or their head on the floor, so they just avoid his gaze and shuffle their feet like chastened schoolchildren. And what he smells on them is not even guilt so much as </span>
  <em>
    <span>discomfort.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well?” he prompts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a wordless exchange of glances among the advisers, and then one of the older men clears his throat and leans forward. “It was me, your majesty,” he says, voice trembling. “I suggested—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No you didn't.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man shrinks back again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's eyes flick between the others. “Who really was it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A different man clears his throat. “Your majesty, it was the Count de Lettenhove who put forth the idea.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's telling the truth—and probably glad to be able to point the finger at someone else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man continues, “The count had business at his estate that necessitated his absence from this council, but if you would like to have him summoned—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No. There is absolutely nothing good that can come of putting Geralt in the same room as that man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pushes himself off the table and stands. “We're done here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's an echo of dismay down the table, and several of the advisers reflexively stand as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-your majesty,” one of them tries. “If... this is about the tribute—”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“</span></em><b><em>Say his name</em></b><span>,” Geralt snarls, rounding on them with a ferocity that he hadn't intended to unleash, only to be met with half a dozen cringing, quailing faces.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one does. It occurs to him that perhaps none of them can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck this,” he says under his breath. “Yen, make a portal, we're leaving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>King Vizimir has also risen to his feet, puffing up with visible affront. “We are in the middle of establishing a </span>
  <em>
    <span>treaty</span></em><span>—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go fuck yourself on your treaty,” Geralt snaps. “These negotiations are a joke, and everyone here knows it. You want terms? How's this: keep your nose clean for a year, keep your soldiers off my land, and maybe, </span>
  <em>
    <span>maybe </span>
  </em>
  <span>I'll be convinced not to hang every last one of you by your own fucking intestines.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer has the portal open, and it's yawning wide behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On his right, Eskel rises as well. “We like potatoes,” he says mildly, as if oblivious to the deadly tension in the room. He smiles at the king. “In case you were wondering what would make a better tribute for next time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gives the assembly a benign nod and then goes first through the portal. Geralt doesn't trust himself to speak, so he just sweeps a glower across the group and follows. They emerge into his office, Yennefer arriving a moment later and letting the portal drop behind her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well that was fun!” she says brightly. “It's rare to sit across the table from so </span>
  <em>
    <span>comprehensive </span>
  </em>
  <span>a pack of guilty consciences.” She ponders it for a moment. “You know, I think they'd been prepared to justify it to themselves as the cost of doing business, had you accepted. They're only ashamed because it didn't work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I agree, they can stand to be unsettled for a while. And if Vizimir is stupid enough to push his luck after this—well, then you can finish collecting the full Redanian set.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd really rather not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'll need to update your deputies in Redania on the situation.” She gives him a pat on the arm as she passes. “Try to stay out of trouble.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door clicks shut behind her, and Geralt sighs. His eyes have fallen to the map spread across the wide table, and he can feel Eskel's gaze on his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eskel, where does this end?” he hears himself ask. The map beneath his fingertips is only a few years old, borders redrawn to recognize their upstart kingdom, but it's already out of date—someone, probably Vesemir, has carefully outlined their Redanian territories in red ink; empire like a tumor spreading relentlessly outward. “Do I have to put my boot on the neck of every king on the continent?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears Eskel give a soft snort. “Considering how many have failed to grasp that conducting themselves decently is all it takes to be left at liberty? I daresay you might.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And for how long? If they'll only behave when someone has them by the short hairs?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because even after fifteen years, this still doesn't feel real sometimes—the idea that a handful of witchers have brought kingdoms to their knees, that Geralt can sit across from royalty and compel their obedience. It feels like a hoax he's managed to pull over an entire continent, nothing but smoke and mirrors and the legend of the White Wolf swollen so huge that Geralt can't even find pieces of himself in it anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he is also acutely aware that for all the might and breadth of his empire, it's a house of cards. He's gotten this far on surprise and intimidation, by upsetting every rule of conventional warfare, but if the White Wolf were to die, he's under no illusions that this empire wouldn't collapse back into its constituent parts as quickly as it rose. A hiccup in the history books, leaving no trace of itself behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because not even witchers live forever, and who's going to take the reins after Geralt? After Ciri? What's to ensure that his successors don't become the same despots this empire was made to overthrow? There has to be a better, more permanent solution than throwing people at the mercy of whatever royal arse happens to be planted on the throne, and just </span>
  <em>
    <span>hoping </span>
  </em>
  <span>that they're sane and possessed of an ounce of human compassion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel hums a few bars of a melody. It takes Geralt a moment to place it as a fairytale Jaskier was singing the other night, one that began </span>
  <em>
    <span>There once was a king who ruled wisely and well—</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt rubs the bridge of his nose. “If there were any kings like that, we wouldn't be here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“True enough,” Eskel says, rising. He steps forward and takes Geralt by the shoulders, turning him and pressing their foreheads together. “I know of only one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt says nothing, but takes a deep breath, grounds himself in Eskel's sturdy presence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel gives his biceps a squeeze before letting go, then slings an arm around Geralt's shoulders and tugs him toward the door. “C'mon. Let's go find your bard and tell him how you threatened to hang the Redanian king by his intestines.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few days after the trip to Redania, Jaskier's lute arrives. Geralt notices when he comes in to supper that evening (late, again) and sees the bard sitting and strumming quietly to himself—though even if he hadn't, Ciri would have brought it to his attention fast enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Papa! Papa!” she says eagerly, pulling on his arm while the food's being brought out. “Jaskier got his lute!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw that,” he says, amused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to hear him play it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm sure he will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I want to hear it </span>
  <em>
    <span>now!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>she insists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He's eating, cub, he'll play for you after supper.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He can eat over here with us?” she tries hopefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt makes a show of looking around them. “What, on the floor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span><em><span>Nooo,</span></em><span>” Ciri says, scowling at him like he's being dense. “Jaskier can sit in </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> chair, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'll</span>
  </em>
  <span> sit on your lap, and then he can play for us </span>
  <em>
    <span>while</span>
  </em>
  <span> he eats. Please?” she adds, giving him her prettiest wide-eyed smile, because she's a little menace who knows exactly how effective that is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt wouldn't ordinarily drag a man away from his supper to make him perform at the princess's whim—except that she's right, he can play while he eats. Jaskier is currently leaning back in his chair and picking out an idle melody between bites of bread, apparently happy to do both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, you can ask him,” Geralt decides, even though an </span>
  <em>
    <span>ask </span>
  </em>
  <span>coming from the Wolf's daughter might as well be an order. “Politely.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes off like a shot, and returns with a slightly-apprehensive bard in tow—though his hesitation seems to be more about the breach in protocol than any real desire to refuse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So does this make </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span> the princess?” Jaskier jokes nervously as he gets seated and the plates are shuffled around to make space for him. “Princess Jaskier, first of his name. I must say, it has a ring to it. Sorry, my lady, I'm afraid you won't be getting your chair back, it's mine now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He adds a little chord that seems to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>sorry-not-sorry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>using the lute as naturally as an extension of his own body language. Ciri evidently finds the idea of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Princess Jaskier</span>
  </em>
  <span> hysterical, and dissolves into giggles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But beneath the jokes, Jaskier is very, very conscious of his proximity to the Wolf. Geralt can smell his wariness, can see it in the low, sidelong glances he steals, in the stiff self-consciousness of his movements.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to look at the bard directly. Jaskier's eyes automatically rise to meet his—and then he's instantly ducking his head and looking away again, desperately casting about for something, </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> else to focus on. Geralt sees him swallow, sees the flush in the hollow of his throat, and Jaskier's scent comes rushing up between them, charged and potent, but that's—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That's not fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is busying himself with his lute now, focusing on his hands over the strings as if that requires his full attention, but his skin is still prickling with a blush and his </span>
  <em>
    <span>awareness</span>
  </em>
  <span> of Geralt is as palpable as a gaze, pressing hot and heavy against his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Huh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, it wouldn't be the first time that humans have gotten danger mixed up with desire. Geralt goes back to eating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Supper progresses, and Jaskier's nerves recover somewhat. He plays, and eats, and engages with Ciri, though he only seems to be able to manage it by resolutely forgetting about Geralt's presence—and Geralt can taste the shiver that runs through him every time he's reminded again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to learn to play too!” Ciri announces when she's done eating. “Can you teach me?” Geralt gives her a prod. “Please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier laughs, sweet and genuine, and inclines his head to her. “My lady, it would be an honor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he'd clearly meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>at some point in the future, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but Ciri takes that to mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>right now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and readily clambers from Geralt's lap into Jaskier's.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's alarm is </span>
  <em>
    <span>comical</span>
  </em>
  <span> as he finds himself suddenly juggling both his lute and an eight-year-old princess, one who takes up a lot more space on his lap than she does on her father's. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt is having a hard time keeping a straight face at the look of wide-eyed panic Jaskier shoots him, afraid of the Wolf's reaction to such liberties being taken with his daughter. But Ciri's the one taking liberties and Jaskier's never reacted to her inappropriately, so Geralt just shrugs and doesn't try to rescue him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier settles Ciri on his lap with the lute in front of her, and (after emphasizing that it is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>very, very delicate</span>
  </em>
  <span> instrument) shows her how to situate her hands on the strings. The song he's teaching her appears to only have two chords, one of which he has to modify into something that she can get her smaller hands around, but after a surprisingly short period of time, Ciri is able to produce it herself, albeit much slower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Papa! Papa look, I can play a song,” she says, bursting with pride, and repeats it for him. Then repeats it again, because it's short.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very good, cub,” he says. “You picked that up quickly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>rather impressed—though he suspects the greater credit goes to Jaskier's skill as a teacher than her aptitude as a student. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier grins at him, caught up in Ciri's excitement. “Want me to give you a go as well?” he teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt raises an eyebrow, and a split second later Jaskier remembers who he's talking to. He freezes, and there's a brief surge of panic in his scent, before he barrels past it to concentrate on Ciri again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can certainly arrange more lessons for you, if you'd like!” he says to her hastily, not looking at Geralt. “Though we'd have to get you a lute of your own, of course. A tiny lute, for tiny princess hands.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm not tiny, I'm </span>
  <em>
    <span>eight,</span></em><span>” she informs him haughtily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oho, is that so?” he says, and holds his hand up flat, inviting comparison.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ciri laughs, and presses a hand up to his that barely covers his palm. “My Papa has big hands too,” she tells him. “I think even bigger than yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns to Geralt expectantly, and waits. Which is when Jaskier realizes what she's asking them to do, and his nerves immediately spike again. He gives a flustered laugh and starts unconsciously edging away from Geralt. “Ahh, princess, I-I don't think your papa wants to—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt wordlessly holds up his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's probably mean of him to tease the man, but there's been no trace of </span>
  <em>
    <span>genuine</span>
  </em>
  <span> fear on him all evening, so Geralt doesn't feel too bad. Jaskier's looking at his hand with the trepidation of a man facing the gallows, but he takes a fortifying breath and then dutifully reaches out and presses their palms together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His fingers are slim and dexterous, his hand only about a knuckle shorter than Geralt's, but the difference in power behind each is unmistakable even at a touch. From Jaskier's scent and his dilating pupils, he's acutely aware of that too, though his response is a far cry from fear. He's blushing very prettily, a light dusting of red high on his cheekbones, and Geralt hears his breath catch—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does that mean Papa would need an even bigger lute than you?” Ciri asks, oblivious. Jaskier snatches his hand back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Jaskier says, sounding strangled. He's blushing </span>
  <em>
    <span>furiously </span>
  </em>
  <span>now, and his eyes are resolutely fixed on the ceiling. “Yes, that is—exactly what that means.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt decides to take pity on him. “Ciri, let the man up, it's time for him to sing.” To Jaskier he says, “Now that you have a lute, can you play for—” He makes a gesture to indicate the whole hall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, ah—yes.” Jaskier is distracted for a moment as he gets Ciri disentangled from the lute, and lets her up so they can trade seats. “Certainly. I'll just go, uh. Get warmed up. By your leave, my lord...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt waves him off, and Jaskier beats a grateful escape.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The weeks pass and the bard continues to thrive at Kaer Morhen, as far as Geralt can tell anyway, since their interactions are limited to debriefs on court politics and Jaskier's evening performances.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel and Yennefer both find it </span>
  <em>
    <span>hilarious</span>
  </em>
  <span> how little time it took Jaskier to change his mind and decide that he'd quite like to get ravished by the White Wolf after all, though they're kind enough not to tease the bard about it. His attraction hasn't made him any less skittish around Geralt, but he's loosened up considerably with Eskel and Yennefer, and he openly adores Ciri. Geralt also hears that he's taken to helping Triss brew her potions in the afternoons, and apparently grown bold enough to beg stories from some of the more sociable witchers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stories that he'll be turning into songs—the </span>
  <em>
    <span>other</span>
  </em>
  <span> part of his job, and the part that Geralt had almost forgotten about. Geralt is not looking forward to hearing about himself in verse (probably with as much accuracy as that ridiculous song about the fey), and he's mortified at the prospect of having to sit through a performance dedicated to his aggrandizement and give it his </span>
  <em>
    <span>approval—</span></em><span>as if he's earned those accolades, as if he's not just a mercenary playing dress-up as an emperor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Yennefer's not wrong about the need for some favorable propaganda to counter the grisly rumors being churned out in the south—apparently the word out now is that White Wolf rips infants from their mother's stomachs and eats them raw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nor is it just pride that makes him want to quash those rumors—because if people truly believe him so monstrous, they're going to choose the devil they know. If they believe that to die fighting would be a kinder fate than surrender, then his conquests are only going to get bloodier, with more lives senselessly lost. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So with that in the balance, he can grit his teeth and sit through a few songs about the White Wolf and pretend to appreciate them. It won't be the first unpleasantness he's had to endure in the name of political expediency since becoming the warlord.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he still winces when, about a month into Jaskier's residency, the bard stands up after supper and announces that he's debuting a new song, </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Siege of Ard Carraigh. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Eskel, at his side, smells Geralt's wash of embarrassment and gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since getting his lute, Jaskier's evening performances have expanded to include the entire hall—the witchers have never had a professional to entertain them before, so he's been met with vocal enthusiasm. The keep's carpenters put together a raised sort of dais for him to stand on when he performs, the better to be seen and heard across the hall—which is only fair, but Geralt finds he does miss those earlier, more intimate performances.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Though for this upcoming song, he should just be grateful that he doesn't have to look Jaskier in the eye for it.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—and the first of what will, I hope, be many more to come,” Jaskier is saying warmly, the bardic patter that's become a staple of his warm-ups and intermissions. “Because I must say, you lot are a bard's</span>
  <em>
    <span> dream,</span></em><span>” he adds with a suggestive drop to his voice. “The tales these halls have heard could inspire songs for a hundred years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep it in your pants!” one of the Viper witchers hollers at him with a grin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's deft at handling the good-natured heckling he gets, even seems to enjoy that back-and-forth with an audience. He pulls a comically innocent face and strums a short, upward-ending chord that seems to say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Who, me?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he grins again. “But, lest you start to think I'm all talk and no... action—” he slips the audience a wink, “—allow me to present, without further ado: </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Siege of Ard Carraigh</span></em><span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it's... not what Geralt had been expecting. He's accustomed to songs of conquest that care only for the victory and the slaughter, that extol the glory of battle (as if war could ever be termed 'glorious'), full of chest-beating and hawkish posturing and bloody lies.</span>
</p><p><span>So he's surprised when the song doesn't start with him at all, but with a country maiden, </span><em><span>a girl in white in the woods,</span></em> <em><span>her laughter rings in the woods, </span></em><span>a brief rural idyll to set the stage, before she's stolen by the king of Kaedwen and the melody drops into a chilly key that raises the hair on Geralt's arms. And then the maiden's gone—</span><em><span>cold and still in the woods, wrapped in white in the woods.</span></em></p><p><span>There's a bit of artistic license taken with the next part, because it implies that Geralt had been there for it, and the maiden's death was what had cemented his decision to act.</span> <span>In reality, there had been so much horror, so much endless, senseless misery, that Geralt can't even say which lost and empty-eyed survivor, which desperately grieving parent, had been the one that finally pushed him past his breaking point. But he can acknowledge that Jaskier's version makes for smoother storytelling, turning the girl in white into a touchstone that haunts the refrain—a reminder of what they're fighting for.</span></p><p>
  <span>The verse about Geralt storming into Kaer Morhen and throwing down his unprecedented question like a gauntlet is... surprisingly accurate, actually, even though Geralt has never in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span> been as eloquent as when Jaskier's putting words in his mouth. But even prettied up for song, he's startled at how much truth is in it—when Jaskier's voice darkens, and what pours out of him isn't pomp but </span>
  <em>
    <span>anger. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The anger that Geralt remembers as if it were yesterday, remembers having been near-inarticulate with fury, and frustrated at being at the mercy of </span>
  <em>
    <span>words</span>
  </em>
  <span> to convey the full horror, the full injustice of it, to get his fellow witchers to </span>
  <em>
    <span>listen.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he thinks he would have attempted it alone if he had to. Sometimes he thinks that's why Vesemir took his side in the end, because he knew that Geralt was either going to do this or die trying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt leans over Eskel's shoulder. “Did he get that part from you?” he asks in a low murmur.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel just nods, his face distant as he watches the performance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The song continues; the witchers are now in accord and marching toward Ard Carraigh for the titular siege, full of righteous anger and determined to put a stop to the king's abuses. Jaskier sings about the decoy siege, playing up the scornful complacency of the city's defenders and getting a hard ripple of laughter from an audience who knows what's coming next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, surprisingly, the song names not just Geralt, but all six other witchers who helped him kidnap the king—a short verse for each, with personal details that prove he actually knows the people he's singing about, while still making them shine like heroes. (For example, describing Lambert as “sharp of tongue / but stout of heart,” which isn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong,</span>
  </em>
  <span> per se, but isn't how Geralt would have put it.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He saves the White Wolf for last—and this is the first time the song has called him that, like this was the moment when he stopped being just Geralt and stepped into legend. The melody shifts again, into something low and powerful, with a sense of awe in the offing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And for the first time, Geralt has a brief moment of insight into what other people feel when they're looking at the White Wolf, why they exalt him the way they do. In his heart, he never feels like the legend they've made him out to be, but now, through the prism of Jaskier's music, he has the faintest sense of what it feels like to be on the outside looking in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier describes their infiltration of the palace, again crediting each witcher by name for their role in it, and accurately enough that it's clear he must have spoken with at least a few of them. Then Geralt's dragging the king before the city gates, the sadist turned cringing coward in the end, begging and groveling until he's beheaded. (Which the song regards as proof of the White Wolf's mercy—a cleaner end than the tyrant deserved.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a few more artistic liberties with their triumphant entrance into the city—the crowds weeping tears of joy and strewing flowers in their path didn't happen until later, after it was clear that the witchers weren't just there to replace one monster with another—but Geralt supposes that aldermen dithering over their dead king and the army on their doorstep doesn't make a compelling narrative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a verse reiterating the Wolf's commitment to justice, pledging his swords in defense of the weak, and then the song ends with the girl in white again—her final resting place no longer a lonely grave, but a place of peace, of rebirth, with forget-me-nots pushing up between the stones of her cairn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The silence as the last note fades is absolute—and then the hall breaks into </span>
  <em>
    <span>riotous </span>
  </em>
  <span>applause, people with tears still on their faces clapping and roaring their approval. Jaskier had clearly not been expecting such a powerful response, and his smile looks almost stunned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then it falters and his eyes flick across the crowd to land unerringly on Geralt, waiting on tenterhooks for his verdict.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt sets his jaw, and gives him a nod. Jaskier's expression relaxes back into a smile (one with no small amount of relief in it), and he lets himself be drawn away by the people trying to get his attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In truth, Geralt doesn't... quite know what to make of the emotions the song dredged up in him. He feels like he was just dragged backward through time, thrown face-to-face with those old memories as vividly as reliving them. It's been a long time since he remembered the uncertainty of those early days; when empire was the furthest thing from his mind and he'd only wondered whether their gamble would work. Whether they could actually save the people they were trying to save, or whether by threatening the power of the elites so directly, he'd painted a target on the order and doomed them all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer materializes behind him, draping herself over the back of his chair. When he glances up at her, he finds her eyes fixed on the bard, watching him with only barely-concealed delight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span></em><span>,” she purrs, for Geralt's ears only. “This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They're going to be singing that in every tavern from Sodden to Ban Ard. We should have gotten a bard years ago.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Only if the bard was him,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt thinks. Because he finds that the idea of </span>
  <em>
    <span>a </span>
  </em>
  <span>bard singing in Kaer Morhen, a bard that's not Jaskier, puts his hackles up—he has the sudden, absolute conviction that no one else would have gotten it right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer catches Jaskier as he's making his way back to his seat. He's practically aglow with triumph, smiling only a little quizzically when Yennefer loops an arm through his and drags him around to face Geralt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shifts in his seat, feeling inexplicably... exposed. Realizing that Jaskier has somehow </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen </span>
  </em>
  <span>far more of him, has somehow come to </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt far better than he knows the bard in return. That Jaskier can sing Geralt's innermost feelings as if he's reached in and taken them straight from his mind, while Geralt is still looking at a stranger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A magnificent performance, little songbird,” Yennefer declares, like a queen bestowing her favor. “We were exceedingly pleased with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You... you were?” His eyes dart hopefully to Geralt, a clear question, </span>
  <b>
    <em>Both</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> of you?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shrugs. “It was very accurate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which makes Jaskier positively beam, and he sweeps a pleased little half-bow, elegant even with Yen on his arm. “But of course! Since I have it on good authority that your lordship prizes accuracy above all things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's teasing a little, but it's accompanied by a spark of pride and genuine pleasure, which is when Geralt realizes that the accuracy wasn't a coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that Jaskier's songs have become increasingly less prone to error and exaggeration lately—he's been paying attention to what little feedback Geralt gives, and making a conscious effort to tailor the performances to his liking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jaskier has been eager to please from the start—but it feels very different when he's looking to Geralt with bright, shining eyes, and blushing with pleasure at his approval.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what should we look forward to next?” Yennefer inquires.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven't quite decided, my lady,” he says, happy as always to talk about his art. “I've been thinking of organizing the tales of the White Wolf into a song cycle—each able to stand on its own, while also being part of a larger work, which would allow me to incorporate some repeated, thematic elements—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes flick to Geralt, and his hand, resting over the strings, plucks out an echo of Geralt's moment of apotheosis, that hint of awe. Then he swallows and hastily directs his attention back to Yennefer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah—in which case, Caingorn would be the next tale to tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you tell it about someone else?” Geralt mutters, mostly rhetorically, since he knows the whole point of this is rehabilitating his image abroad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer reaches down and tweaks his ear, but Jaskier looks intrigued.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well...” he says with growing excitement, like he's watching an idea coalesce in front of him. “You were the one leading the charge, my lord, it wouldn't be </span>
  <em>
    <span>accurate </span>
  </em>
  <span>to leave you out entirely.” Full of punchy leftover energy from his performance, he even has the audacity to </span>
  <em>
    <span>wink </span>
  </em>
  <span>at Geralt. “But I could perhaps put the greater emphasis on the role that the Griffins played in that campaign? Ah—if that meets with your approval, my lady,” he adds to Yen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(And Geralt really doesn't envy him being in the position of trying to please both of them when they're at loggerheads.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Yennefer's in an indulgent mood. “That'll do,” she says, patting the bard's hand. “Though Geralt, my dear, you will have to get over this ridiculous modesty of yours eventually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets Jaskier escape, and he's practically skipping as he goes, leaving Geralt feeling oddly... disappointed, that the bard would rather leave than linger. But then Ciri's back from the seat she'd taken closer to the stage, gushing over the performance as she climbs into his lap, and that's distraction enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I grow up and have adventures, do you think Jaskier will write a song about </span>
  <em>
    <span>me?”</span>
  </em>
  <span> she asks breathlessly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drops a kiss on the top of her head. “My menace, I'm sure he'll write a thousand songs about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turns out Ciri misses the private performances too, because it isn't long before she starts insisting on having Jaskier at the head of the table for a song or two before he goes off to sing for the whole hall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She also insists on being scrupulously fair about letting each of them take turns when making requests. The bard probably appreciates the variety, at least, since Yennefer likes love songs and revenge ballads, Ciri likes adventures and comedies, and Eskel likes songs about home, about brotherhood and belonging. Geralt likes giving his turn to Ciri, until she decides that's not allowed anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But tonight it's Eskel's turn, and when prompted for his request, he looks thoughtful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How's that other song of yours coming along?” he asks. “The one you asked me about.” It's accompanied by a meaningful tilt of his head toward Geralt, which is worrisome.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh!” Jaskier says, brightening. “Well it's not </span>
  <em>
    <span>quite</span>
  </em>
  <span> done yet—I haven't decided on a title, and there are still some more verses I want to add. But I've certainly got enough to sing for you tonight.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shoots Eskel a dire look; Eskel just winks at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier adjusts his fingering on the lute and strums a few experimental chords, then draws himself up and launches into the song.</span>
</p><p><span>...Which turns out to be a comedy about an adorable wolf cub always getting into trouble, and her terrifying-but-indulgent direwolf father always having to pull her out of it. It doesn't name any names, but as a metaphor it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and it doesn't take Ciri long to realize that the song is about her. She is </span><em><span>thrilled </span></em><span>with it, and</span> <span>Geralt can already tell that this is going to be the only thing she requests for a very long time.</span></p><p>
  <span>By the time Jaskier runs out of verses, he's pink-cheeked and grinning, clearly pleased with its reception. He sweeps a bow to Ciri, then looks to Geralt for his judgment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't get gray hairs in my gray hairs,” Geralt says, deadpan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier gives a breathless laugh. “My lord, I have no idea what you mean. I know you're terribly important, but surely you don't think </span>
  <em>
    <span>every </span>
  </em>
  <span>song is about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's the first time he's been bold enough to rib Geralt so brazenly—something he realizes a heartbeat later, when his eyes widen and his smile immediately drops. He already has his mouth open to make some apology when Geralt forestalls him,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But apart from that it was accurate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah! Haha. Yes. Accurate—no greater compliment could man conceive.” He strums a nervous little flair of embellishment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happens next?” Ciri demands. “After the cub finds the ducklings?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jaskier practically throws himself at her to escape the conversation with Geralt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually the bard goes off to the dais to do his public performance, taking Ciri with him. Geralt looks to Eskel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you put him up to that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel grins. “Nope. That was all him. He just ran it by me ahead of time to see if you were likely to take offense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assured him you would love it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Ciri had loved it, which is good enough for Geralt. And despite the wolf imagery, he realizes suddenly, the song had nothing to do with the White Wolf at all. It wasn't a song from someone overawed and unable to look past the legend—it was from someone who'd looked at Geralt and seen not a warlord, but a father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It gives him that unsettled feeling again, that a man he's barely even spoken to can nonetheless </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>him so clearly.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>As spring draws to a close, trouble arises in southern Cintra. Filavandrel writes to Geralt with the news that elven villages in the Marnadal steppes are being destroyed by human raiders—and while bandits are usually an indiscriminate nuisance, there's evidence that these are in the pay of a Cintran nobleman seeking to annex the steppes for more grazing land. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's on the complete opposite side of the continent from Geralt's empire; he has no treaty with Cintra that could compel them to stop, and the nobles responsible would likely just deny their involvement anyway. He could dispatch some witchers to defend the villages, but installing his soldiers on foreign soil would be a clear provocation—and if they killed the human bandits, likely an act of war. (Or the Cintran noble could simply wait them out, because it's not like they could stay to guard it forever.) And while Geralt isn't opposed to taking in refugees—assuming these people would even be willing to abandon their homes—he has no credible solution for how to transport a thousand elves across more than eight hundred miles of hostile terrain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Filavandrel knows this is a long shot. He knows that Geralt doesn't actually work miracles, and only brought the problem to him as a last resort, but...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it still pains him, to know that he's looking at a genocide about to happen, and helpless to prevent it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits in his office for a long time afterward, trying to come up with a solution, but his thoughts just chase themselves in circles and keep coming back to the same problems each time. The letter sits in front of him like an accusation, until finally he makes himself get up and go outside to clear his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He goes down to the practice yard and joins the drills they're running—sprinting laps until even he has to stop and catch his breath, throwing himself through the obstacle courses, partnering with whoever wants to challenge him. It feels good to spar, to lose himself in the single-minded focus of combat; feels good to be surrounded by the rough camaraderie of his brothers, letting their spirits lift his. By the time the sun is high over the courtyard, he's battered, drenched in sweat, and feeling considerably better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They're not out of options, he thinks as he strips off his soaking shirt and heads back into the castle. He's on good terms with Skellige, he could probably barter passage for the refugees on Skelliger ships—and now that they have Blaviken, they've even got a port where they can receive those ships. Or if he can negotiate with Sodden and Temeria for permission to camp the refugees for a few nights, they could break the trip up into multiple legs, and then Yennefer and her fellow mages might be able to transport them by portal. Or maybe Yennefer knows something from her time at court that could be used to make this nobleman back off; persuasion or blackmail, Geralt isn't fussed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, Yennefer's the one he needs to consult about this, so instead of heading to the baths, he swings upstairs to catch her before lunch. He gives a perfunctory knock on her office door, then pushes it open and goes inside. “Yen, how many people can you take through a—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—don't start teaching rhetoric until third year—” Jaskier is saying, but at Geralt's entrance he looks up and trails off, eyes suddenly going wide “...</span><em><span>oh</span></em><span>...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is sitting opposite the desk from Yen, but whatever they'd been talking about has been obviously, instantly knocked clean out of his head. He's staring at Geralt's body, lips slightly parted, pupils wide and dark in his blue eyes as they drink in the sight of him. Geralt feels his nostrils flare, and a split-second later his senses are </span>
  <em>
    <span>flooded </span>
  </em>
  <span>with the scent of Jaskier's desire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hits him like a wave, filling his lungs and overwhelming his instincts—this isn't the flickers of interest that he's been tasting off and on for months, that he's been politely trying to ignore, but desire like blind need, like Jaskier's just gone down on his knees and offered up every part of himself without reservation. Desire like </span>
  <em>
    <span>drowning,</span>
  </em>
  <span> hijacking reason and rational thought, chasing out everything except the urge to follow that scent to its source, to find it and lose himself in it, draw it close and drag his tongue over it. He can hear Jaskier's heartbeat pounding in his ears, can feel the pulse of it against his lips—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“OhwouldyoulookatthetimeIneedtobegoing—!” Jaskier blurts out in a single word, leaping to his feet. He's resolutely avoiding eye contact with Geralt as he scoops up a pile of papers from Yennefer's desk. “Excellent, great,” he says to her amused silence. “I'll—talk to you later then. About—the things. All the things. Goodbye!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clutches the papers to his chest and wheels around toward the door, then freezes at the prospect of having to pass Geralt to escape. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah! I—<i>ohh...”</i></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's eyes dip lower again, pupils flaring wide. The tip of his tongue snakes out to wet his lips, soft and plump, and there's a flush breaking out across his cheeks, blooming in the hollow of his throat. This close, the scent of him is overpowering, charged like the air before a thunderstorm; Geralt can feel it drawing him in, his eyes fixed on the pulse beating in Jaskier's neck, on the faint sheen of sweat breaking out over his skin—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer shifts in her chair with a pointed creak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt sucks in a breath and steps back sharply. Jaskier gives him a frantic bob of a bow, and hurtles past him in a gust of desire-soaked air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he's gone, and Geralt's breath collapses out of him like he's been punched. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he says cogently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart is pounding like he just finished a sprint, the skin of his arms still prickling with the electric charge in the air. He closes his eyes, flexes his fingers to dispel the shocky tremors in his muscles while he catches his breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer, of course, finds all of this unbearably entertaining. “Do you need a moment?” she inquires.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Don’t,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he growls. He takes a few steps to cross the room and then sinks into the chair that Jaskier had so recently occupied, tries to ignore the warmth and the bard's scent still clinging to it, tries to make himself breathe steady and deep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer hums. “Our little songbird's grown quite enamored with you, hasn't he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shoots her a glower that completely fails to repress her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should ask him to bed,” she says helpfully. “He'd say yes in a heartbeat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt snorts. “Of course he would. Whether he wanted to or not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That makes her stop, then frown, and she flicks a glance of disbelief at the door. “Are you joking?” she demands. “What, in </span>
  <em>
    <span>all of that, </span>
  </em>
  <span>could have </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibly</span>
  </em>
  <span> made you think that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn't want to?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt pauses, chooses his words carefully before answering. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There's a difference between desire and </span>
  <em>
    <span>desiring to,</span></em><span>” he says at last. “There are many things people enjoy as a fantasy, that they'd recoil from in reality.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks immensely skeptical. “You really think he'd recoil from you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He does,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt doesn't say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not as often as he used to, and not with true fear anymore, but there never fails to come the moment when Jaskier inevitably checks himself. Suddenly conscious again of the difference in their status—afraid of overstepping, of presuming too much familiarity with the warlord on whose sufferance he's dependent. He may not be </span>
  <em>
    <span>afraid </span>
  </em>
  <span>of Geralt anymore, but he's still wildly ill-at-ease in his presence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the other hand, there's no denying that the bard </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants </span>
  </em>
  <span>him—on a base level, if nothing else—and that itself is temptation incarnate. If Jaskier's ever bold enough to approach him wreathed in desire like that again, Geralt knows he won't be able to resist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If he asks, I'm going to say yes,” Geralt says at last. “But it has to come from him. Because if I'm the one asking…” He shakes his head, meets her eyes. “Then he can't say no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But he's not </span>
  <em>
    <span>going to </span>
  </em>
  <span>ask—” Yen starts to protest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not because he doesn't want to, but because he's intimidated by you—”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Exactly,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt bites out. “You just said it: he's intimidated by me. That's no basis for any sort of... </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> between equals.”</span>
</p><p><span>“Geralt, you rule over the largest empire on the continent. You don't have</span> <span>equals anymore,” she says bluntly.</span></p><p>
  <span>“You're my equal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I</span>
  </em>
  <span> am a woman who knows her own mind and her own desires—just as Jaskier is a grown man who knows his. He doesn't need you to protect him from himself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt stews over that in mulish silence.</span>
</p><p><span>Yennefer sighs, and leans forward over her desk. “Geralt, at some point you have to accept that you're not just a witcher</span> <span>anymore. You're an emperor—and emperors don't have the luxury of equality.”</span></p><p>
  <span>He never </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be a fucking emperor, he just wanted to help people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are never,” she reiterates, each word placed as carefully as a blade, “going to find someone who can meet you as an equal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Yen…”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he starts, pained, but she keeps going, implacable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyone the warlord takes for lover is </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>going to be subordinate. You need to accept that imbalance—and you need a partner who can accept it too.” He watches her hand close over the tabletop, hears her small intake of breath. “I couldn't. And I'm sorry for it—but that wasn't a compromise I was willing to make. I won't allow my destiny to be subsumed into furthering yours. I can be the White Wolf's adviser, but I won't be the emperor's consort.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is something they haven't talked about in a very long time. It's something Geralt rarely even lets himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>think </span>
  </em>
  <span>about, like a bruise he tries to avoid touching: the mystery of why they fell apart. He'd tried to understand, of course, but their conversations had just turned into the same circular, inevitable arguments and never resolved anything. In the end, all they could do was tacitly agree to stop retreading that ground, before there was no friendship left to salvage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he's realizing now is that there was never any mystery to it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This </span>
  </em>
  <span>is what she's been trying to explain to him from the start—her reason for leaving him, both simple and insurmountable. He just hadn't wanted to hear it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Others can, though,” she says gently. “There are people who are content to take an ancillary role, and are none the lesser for it. Like Eskel.” Then she gives him a devilish smile, “And, I suspect, like a certain bard—who would be thrilled down to his submissive little </span>
  <em>
    <span>soul</span>
  </em>
  <span> if the Warlord of the North were to throw him over his shoulder and carry him off to be ravished.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which is a mental picture that hits sudden and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard,</span>
  </em>
  <span> because he could do it, too; Jaskier's weight would mean nothing at all to witcher strength, and Geralt can imagine the ease with which he could pick him up, handle him however he liked, how Jaskier's scent would thrill at the touch. He can still taste his arousal in the air, can imagine it curling like steam in the air of his bedroom, slick on Jaskier's skin while they—</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“No,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt grinds out. “If he can't even look me in the eye, then I have no business taking him to bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer huffs a disgruntled sigh and sits back again. “Fine. But when it's coming up on a year, and you two are still dancing around each other, I am going to sit him down and tell him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>explicitly,</span>
  </em>
  <span> how welcome his overtures would be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt winces, but that's probably the best he can ask for. “As long as you don't make it sound like an order.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gives a shrug that says she's making no promises. “We'll see. So did you have a reason for showing up at my office half-naked, or was that purely for Jaskier's benefit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Months pass, and life in the empire goes on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The situation with Jaskier seems to have reached an impasse—Geralt's presence still makes his heartbeat flutter and his scent quicken with interest, but he remains mindful of Geralt's position and authority, and never attempts to close that careful distance between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt manages to temporarily contain the situation in Cintra by sending a small handful of witchers to be “guests” of the elves—not so many as to trigger a diplomatic incident, but enough to buy them some time while he looks for a more permanent solution.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier continues to be a prolific (and astonishingly versatile) songwriter. It seems like every week he's adding something new to his repertoire—love songs, bawdy songs, adventure songs, songs of faith, songs for dancing, and on one memorable occasion, a song about a lobster.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At midsummer he comes out with </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Wolf in Caingorn, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and true to his word, it mentions Geralt's presence but reserves the lion's share of its praise for the selfless bravery of the Griffin witchers. Its debut makes the Griffins go absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>feral</span>
  </em>
  <span> with delight, and it's clear that Jaskier is going to have to write songs for the other schools too, or have a revolt on his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shortly thereafter, Geralt realizes that he's no longer preemptively cringing at the thought of more White Wolf songs—as long as Jaskier's the one writing them, anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In truth, Geralt's not sure how he does it, because despite the bard's infatuation, despite months in proximity, the two of them are not close. He knows that Jaskier's been making friends high and low around the keep, that most people are charmed by his openness and his boundless enthusiasm—but he doesn't make free with the Wolf. Geralt's not one of the people he pesters for anecdotes, and the two of them have never even had a conversation that could be called personal—and yet somehow Jaskier is still the one who </span>
  <em>
    <span>sees </span>
  </em>
  <span>him most clearly.</span>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <span>Geralt does manage to resolve the problem in Cintra, eventually. It turns out that the elves are more than amenable to being relocated—the soil of the steppes is marginal at best, only left to them because the humans didn't want it before—and they leap at Geralt's offer of better land and more congenial neighbors. Yennefer and her fellow sorcerers, working in shifts, are able to transport the refugees and their belongings to the coast, where privateers from Skellige are waiting to ferry them to Blaviken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Summer is verging into fall by the time they finish settling the elves into their new home in occupied Redania, which happens to coincide with the Velen harvest festival, and they throw a lively celebration for it. It does rankle a bit that the asshole noble who started all this will be getting exactly what he wanted, but on the whole, Geralt is just glad that they were able to rescue the elves, and glad to wash his hands of Cintra.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Redania, too, has been acclimating well to life under the White Wolf's rule—all the more so now that King Vizimir's troops have stopped harrying the border and (mostly) stopped seizing trade caravans coming out of Geralt's territory. Geralt still doesn't trust him, but as long as the man continues to act in good faith, then they can continue with their uneasy coexistence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier continues adding songs to his White Wolf cycle; in early autumn he stands up and announces his newest, </span>
  <em>
    <span>To the Banks of the Dyfne,</span>
  </em>
  <span> this one about Geralt's acquisition (since it can't exactly be called a conquest) of northern Aedirn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It starts, as they all do, with the Wolf's reasons for choosing to intervene—in this case, that the provinces north of the Dyfne had been ravaged by famine for two years running. Which was partly just bad luck, the result of two unseasonably dry summers in a row, but it had then been compounded by the Aedirnian king's mismanagement—and since the people only had to look across the Pontar to see their neighbors in Kaedwen thriving under the White Wolf's rule, they decided to try their luck with him instead. Geralt was invited into Dol Blathanna and welcomed with open arms, and when the Aedirnian king wound up getting himself killed in his inevitable attempt to retake the provinces, well. Geralt was shedding no tears, and according to the song, no one else was either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then, interestingly, the song shifts its viewpoint to the king's younger brother, Gwidon—now king himself, and faced with the daunting prospect of the White Wolf coming for his head next. Determined to save his people from the devastation of war, he rides alone in the dead of night to the enemy encampment, then goes to his knees before the Wolf and willingly offers his neck to the sword—that his might be the only blood spilled in the conquest of Aedirn.</span>
</p><p><span>It is probably Jaskier's least-accurate song to date, since no one was privy to that conversation except Geralt and Gwidon himself, but it makes a stunningly good piece of propaganda. It turns the young king's surrender—which cost him</span> <span>more political capital in his homeland than he's ever been able to recoup—into not a defeat, but an act of staggering bravery, the purest and most noble sacrifice that a king could make for his people. The Wolf, deeply moved by Gwidon's selflessness, touches the young king's shoulder and bids him rise, </span><em><span>You need not kneel for me, King of Aedirn.</span></em></p><p>
  <span>Ultimately, Geralt wound up keeping Lormark and Dol Blathanna (up to the banks of the titular Dyfne) because the people of the regions wished it so, but he would have had no compunctions about turning them back over to Gwidon. The young king was frankly unbelievable in his courage and integrity—Jaskier had gotten that much right—like a hero sprung from the pages of a fairytale, and Geralt had been more than willing to let him keep his throne. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(So it's something of a tragedy that Gwidon's subsequent reign has been one of near-impotence—the hawks have never forgiven him for ceding those provinces without a fight, and they've undermined him at every turn since. Fairytale princes, it turns out, don't make effective politicians.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Jaskier's song depicts Gwidon as a hero that the White Wolf himself has looked in the eye and deemed an equal, and the refrain, pounding like a drumbeat through the song, is a bold demand for kings to uphold their end of the social bargain—and implies that a king who fails to put his people above himself has forfeited his right to rule.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>O kings, what will become of your ambitions</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When time comes for the </span>
  </em>
  <span>noblesse</span>
  <em>
    <span> to </span>
  </em>
  <span>oblige</span><em><span>?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Have you courage that can stand by your convictions</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And carry out your duty where it leads?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It's not his flashiest song—a bit too philosophical for that—but it's well-received nonetheless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yen </span>
  <em>
    <span>loves </span>
  </em>
  <span>it—loves that it shows the White Wolf as a capable administrator instead of a conqueror, shows his willingness to make peace instead of war and shows people </span>
  <em>
    <span>begging</span>
  </em>
  <span> to join his empire; that it simultaneously bolsters their ally in Aedirn while undermining the legitimacy of any king they're likely to be deposing. Geralt appreciates that it spends more time inflating Gwidon's reputation than his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's set continues, moving on to jigs and love songs and whatever else people happen to request. (Including a reprise of </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Siege of Ard Carraigh</span>
  </em>
  <span> that seems to be extemporizing the part about the other witchers, because Lambert is now </span>
  <em>
    <span>stout of heart / but dumb of arse.</span></em><span>) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yen leaves, off to go steal Jaskier's sheet music and get copies distributed in half a dozen Aedirnian cities before sunrise. Eskel comes back carrying a very sleepy Ciri from her seat by the stage, and Geralt takes her off to bed, overriding her insistence that she's not tired, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's on his way back to the dining hall when he runs into Jaskier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bard seems to be done for the evening, lute slung over his shoulder as he saunters in the direction of his quarters, but at the sight of Geralt he lights up—still riding the high from a successful performance, which always briefly makes him bold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My lord!” Jaskier exclaims and sweeps an embellished bow. “Your presence </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly </span>
  </em>
  <span>puts the capstone on this evening's triumph. Though if a bard might beg for your indulgence, I pray you—say my efforts met with your approval. Say my song found favor in your ears.” He looks up, and his eyes are dancing. “And if you say it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>accurate,</span>
  </em>
  <span> I am going to throw myself off the highest tower in this keep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No you won't,” Geralt says, amused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this would usually be the point where Jaskier remembers himself and closes down again, but tonight he's still being buoyed along by his exhilaration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don't know that!” he insists with faux-outrage. “I could! I am a </span>
  <em>
    <span>delicate artist, </span>
  </em>
  <span>a man of keen sensibilities, in my despair I could—no you're right, I won't. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>pleeeease?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he wheedles, daring to sidle up close before dancing back again. His eyes are dark, roaming boldly over Geralt's face, lingering on his lips when he says, almost dreamily, “I would trade all the riches in all the kingdoms for but a word of praise from you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's drunk. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt can smell it now, and feels himself clamp down </span>
  <em>
    <span>hard </span>
  </em>
  <span>on the wave of disappointment that follows. There's ale on Jaskier's breath, his movements are loose and slightly off-balance, and he is gazing into Geralt's eyes with all the unfettered adoration that he never lets himself show when he's in his right mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You already know you're good,” Geralt says gruffly. “You don't need to hear it from me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier bites his lip coyly and steps forward again, making a curling little </span>
  <em>
    <span>come-hither </span>
  </em>
  <span>gesture in the air that stops just shy of touching Geralt's chest, and he leans in like he’s going to whisper a secret. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what if I </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to hear it from you?” he asks, low and sultry. His eyes fall to rest longingly on the spill of Geralt's hair over his shoulder and his fingertips twitch, almost-but-not-quite brushing the tips. He sighs, a sound like pleasure spilling out of him. “Ohh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>such stuff as stars are made of…” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>This isn't Jaskier's usual brand of attraction, something skittish and impulsive that always seems to leave him unsettled by his own desires. This is bold and fearless and sensual, both invitation and challenge, and Geralt really, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>wishes that Jaskier didn't have to be drunk before he could do this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Jaskier coaxes, scarcely above a whisper. He flutters a smile up at Geralt through dark lashes, swaying in close and then away again, his scent an enticement to touch. “Tell me just </span>
  <em>
    <span>one </span>
  </em>
  <span>thing you liked. And then you have my word that I will never ask your lordship to play the critic again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt is still bitterly disappointed by... any number of things. That this is the first conversation they've ever had where Jaskier didn't have Ciri, or Yennefer, or Eskel to keep between them like a shield, the first time they've spoken to each other without an audience listening in. And Jaskier is bright, and beautiful, and close enough to taste, and he's being brave and flirtatious and inviting and </span>
  <em>
    <span>none of it means a fucking thing, </span>
  </em>
  <span>because he wouldn't be doing this if he weren't drunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But.</span></p><p>Geralt can also acknowledge that this is the first time Jaskier's ever dared to 
  <em>
    <span>ask </span>
  </em>
  <span>him for anything, so he makes himself relent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he says. “I liked...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then he finds himself drawing a blank. Because, he realizes, he's never used the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> as a conjunction between his feelings and Jaskier's music. To be sure, Jaskier's voice and aspect are extremely pleasant, and his songs about the White Wolf are not excruciating to listen to, but... it still feels alien to call that </span>
  <em>
    <span>liking. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt's not accustomed to being a man who has likes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, to his credit, manages to restrain himself while he waits for Geralt's answer, even though he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>vibrating </span>
  </em>
  <span>with anticipation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You understand why I do it,” Geralt says at last. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't know if that's the kind of compliment Jaskier's fishing for, doesn't know if the man's even going to remember this conversation tomorrow, but it's true. Jaskier immediately grasped what so few outside of Kaer Morhen ever seem to see: that the White Wolf's empire, his conquests—they're not about power, or glory, or proving that Geralt's swinging the biggest dick in the northern kingdoms, they're simply about wanting to </span>
  <em>
    <span>help people.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“You understand what I'm fighting for, and you have the words for it that I don't.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sees Jaskier blink, confused by the turn this conversation's taken, then sees the moment when the words register and he turns away in consternation. It's sobered him slightly, or at least brought him back to himself, and Geralt can feel the walls between them starting to rise once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sing the truth of me,” he finishes. “And for that I'm in your debt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier draws in a deep breath, nerves himself to meet Geralt's eyes and hold them. “No, my lord,” he says quietly. “For I've yet to find the words that do you justice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's not flirting anymore; there's nothing but raw honesty in his voice, and one last glimpse of that banked longing before it gets tucked away again behind layers of propriety.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn't have an answer to that, and Jaskier drops his eyes. He swallows, then makes a stiff, careful bow. “By your leave...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt lets him go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winter arrives, in fits and starts at first, until the last freeze of the year sets in, the one that won't melt again until spring. Tradition at Kaer Morhen is to kick off those snowed-in months with a feast, and with Jaskier there to entertain, this year's celebration is a lively one that runs late into the night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning, Yennefer comes to Geralt in his office and informs him that she's spoken with the bard about his plans for the future.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I asked him if he'd rather take a position at one of the southern courts,” she says frankly. “And told him that if he wanted help finding employment, I'd be happy to provide him with letters of introduction.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn't move, but feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He told me that he appreciated my thoughtful and generous offer... but it won't be necessary, because he is, in fact, entirely satisfied with his current situation at Kaer Morhen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt blinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer smiles at him. “And so unless that was my subtle way of telling him he'd been sacked, then he would prefer to remain here for as long as he's permitted. That he's come to think of Kaer Morhen as home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He said that?” Geralt asks, startled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm, yes. He did express an interest in traveling someday—altogether starry-eyed with the romance of being a wandering troubadour.” She sniffs. “I suspect he'll find the reality of life on the road less glamorous than his imagination has it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt bites back the knee-jerk urge to object (it's </span>
  <em>
    <span>dangerous </span>
  </em>
  <span>out there—) and forces himself to acknowledge that traveling in his empire is actually quite safe these days; that Jaskier is a young man who deserves a chance to see more of the world; and furthermore, that it doesn't matter how Geralt feels, because it's not his choice to make.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But he also said that as long as he hasn't worn out his welcome, he'd like to return to Kaer Morhen at the end of his travels.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ten months ago, Geralt would not have put money on the bard's odds of staying for any length of time. Too scared, too soft, too lost, not to mention that he'd never wanted to be there in the first place. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Finding a purpose,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt thinks again. The one thing that all the humans of Kaer Morhen have in common. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Jaskier has undeniably carved out a niche for himself here. He's the keep's only professional entertainment, with a loyal and vocally appreciative audience. He's Ciri's tutor, and well on his way to becoming an invaluable member of the White Wolf's inner circle. He's the only bard on the continent who can boast an insider's access to the Wolf's court, who can write the songs that no one else can.</span>
</p><p><span>When framed like that, Geralt's aware that a post in Kaer Morhen could be considered the opportunity of a lifetime. That there are probably bards across the continent who would kill</span> <span>to be where Jaskier is now.</span></p><p>
  <span>But at the same time it feels like such a... meager thing to offer to someone of Jaskier's talents, not nearly enough to entice him to stay. Living in a dreary old fortress on the edge of the world, singing for a handful of rough-and-tumble barbarians who can't tell good music from bad, and obliged to spend half his days tutoring an unruly nine-year-old in geography instead of concentrating on his art.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>wants</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> to stay, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt reminds himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He wants Kaer Morhen to be the home he comes back to.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt will miss him when he leaves—will miss him far more than the bard realizes—but he can force himself to concentrate on that small kernel of promise: that if Jaskier leaves, he'll come back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One morning around midwinter, Geralt wakes up stiff and sore, the combination of a nasty accident at practice the previous day—a shattered scapula—followed by a long, cold night of letting his shoulder stiffen while he pored over paperwork. He begs off an early meeting with Triss and takes the time to go to soak in the baths for a while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The baths are mostly empty at this time of day, only a servant scrubbing down the floor on the far side and a few voices bouncing down the corridor from the private pool reserved for humans. Geralt's about to strip down, when suddenly it's Jaskier's voice reaching him from around the corner, and he halts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—come on, I'm serious! Stop laughing at me, this isn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>funny!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he's trying to insist over his own laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It really is,” someone else chortles in reply, a low female voice that Geralt places as one of the human warriors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears a splash, followed by Jaskier's theatrical groan. “I'm </span>
  <em>
    <span>dying </span>
  </em>
  <span>here, and nobody will even lay a finger on me because they're all too scared of the Wolf. At this rate I am going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>die a virgin.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His companion snorts. “Somehow, I think that ship's already sailed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The other day I tried to proposition one of the Bear witchers, and you know what he did? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Laughed in my face. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Laughed, and told me that he likes his balls where they are, thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt feels his breath catch and he's flooded with a sudden wash of—embarrassment? Anger? He's gotten so used to having Jaskier perhaps not </span>
  <em>
    <span>for himself,</span>
  </em>
  <span> exactly, but at least being the exclusive center of the bard's attention. So it's deeply unpleasant to learn that Jaskier would turn his attention on others as well—that he's been trying, in fact, and the only reason no one's taken him up on it is out of respect for what they see as Geralt's prior claim.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grits his teeth, finishes stripping and climbs into the bath—not one of the hotter pools, even though that would probably be good for his shoulder, and he knows it's because he's privately hoping that Jaskier might wander by and join him—letting the water close over his ears and muffle their conversation into unintelligible noise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's a part of his mind that won't stop railing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>which Bear was it, whose hands did you want on you, </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>who was it—</em>
  </b>
</p><p>
  <span>But. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier has the right to seek out whatever companionship he pleases. He's not a slave, not a prisoner, not the warlord's concubine. He's one of the permanent residents of the keep, and he's allowed to form relationships and form families as most of the humans here eventually do. Jaskier is </span>
  <em>
    <span>allowed </span>
  </em>
  <span>to choose his own companionship—</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You just wish he'd choose you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt bites down on a sigh. Because yes, Jaskier still smells bright and deliciously eager whenever he's around—but apparently he's also eager for certain Bear witchers, and the fact remains that Geralt is not among the people he's invited to his bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sinks deeper into the water, lets it close over his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows what his duty is here—knows that he needs to release Jaskier from whatever claim people think Geralt has on him, to allow Jaskier to conduct his affairs freely, without Geralt's hand in them like some overbearing father. He doesn't have the right to hold Jaskier's affections hostage—to say, in essence, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Me, or no one.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But at the same time—and he can feel his jaw starting to tighten—he knows what's going to happen when word gets out that Jaskier is up for grabs. Because the bard is easily one of the most popular people in the keep, and as soon as the ban on him is lifted, he's going to be swarmed by more admirers than he can keep up with. And maybe Yen's right—maybe Jaskier does want Geralt in his bed, and he's just working up the courage to say so. And maybe he'll get there eventually, or maybe he won't </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>to, not with so many other options to choose from.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...But right now, his only options are Geralt or celibacy, and if Geralt lets that stand, it's an abuse of his power as plain as any other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The splash of a body dropping into the pool manages to catch him by surprise, and he comes up to find Jaskier settling onto the seat across from him, with water up to his shoulders and a smile for Geralt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning!” Jaskier says. He's in a cheery mood, bright and loose, and Geralt ventures to hope that he'll forget to stand on ceremony. “I'm surprised to see you here this early. Usually you're not in until after practice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt makes a noncommittal grunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Although I mean, it is your—big, broody castle,” he rambles, flicking absently at the water's surface. “You're free to go wherever you want, whenever you want...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt clears his throat. “You know you're allowed to take lovers here, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It catches Jaskier entirely off-guard. His mouth falls open, gaping for a moment before he covers his face with his hands and sinks below the water in chagrin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Argh,” he says when he resurfaces, looking mortified. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Argh.</span>
  </em>
  <span> I should have known someone would overhear that. No such thing as a private conversation in this castle, is there? One would think you witchers would have worked out an etiquette for it by now—y'know, the fine and subtle art of pretending like you </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn't </span>
  </em>
  <span>heard that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt shrugs; witcher senses are what they are. He swallows over the stones in his throat and makes himself continue, “If people have... misunderstood. What I meant by my protection. I can set the record straight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier winces, looking dubious. “I'm afraid it's a little late for that,” he says apologetically. “Unless you want to prop me up in front of the entire hall again, and this time announce that it's open season on the bard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idea makes Geralt's teeth clench, because it's one thing to refrain from actively sabotaging Jaskier's romantic prospects, but quite another to expect Geralt to stand up there and invite everyone else to try their luck where he can't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can... put the word out,” he says, though it tastes bitter in his mouth. “I'll make sure your admirers know they'll get no objection from me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I, ah—thank you? I guess. And—sorry. For the fact that we're having this... terrible... horrible conversation.” Jaskier looks like he'd rather drown himself in the tub than be talking about this. “Truly, I'm glad that you're—concerned about me. But...” He takes a deep breath and darts a glance up at Geralt again, his blue gaze clear. “You don't need to put me up for auction.” Then he blushes and ducks his eyes, and says quietly, “I like being yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt can hear his own heart thudding like a fist against the inside of his ribs, conscious of their breaths overlapping in the attenuated silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is that... invitation enough? Because it feels like both an unmistakable yes, but at the same time, far too tangled up in Geralt's own wishful thinking for him to trust his judgment, and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“OH GOSH! Look at the time, </span>
  <em>
    <span>again. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It's... time-to-go-o’-clock!” Jaskier scrambles up out of the pool, splashing water all over in his haste. He's wrapping himself with toweling and avoiding Geralt's eyes. “Great talk! So glad that's over with! Bye!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he's gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt sighs and lets his head fall back against the stone with a thunk.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Geralt is used to the passage of time moving faster than he expects, but it still manages to catch him by surprise when he receives word that the Redanians want to meet again, and he realizes it's been a full year since he walked out of the treaty talks. A year since Jaskier arrived as the first tribute of the spring thaw; a year since King Vizimir tried to bribe him with a pretty bedmate, like one would offer a gift of prize horseflesh or fine wine, and inadvertently handed him the solution to half a dozen problems he hadn't even known he'd had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt is no more eager to deal with Vizimir now than he was a year ago, but the Redanians </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>behaved themselves, for the most part, so he feels obligated to respond in kind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So the real question is, their place or ours?” Yennefer asks when she finishes reading the letter aloud and drops it on the desk. It's just the two of them in his office; he'd been collating reports when she brought the news.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He frowns. “Why would we bring them here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaer Morhen has never hosted foreign dignitaries before—has never needed to. Geralt's not interested in playing the subtle games of power and intimidation, and he's not afraid to parley in the heart of enemy territory. He doesn't know why she's making this suggestion now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well for one, you don't live in a moldering pile of rocks anymore,” she points out dryly. “I'd no longer be embarrassed to receive guests here. And two, as amusing as it is to let people imagine Kaer Morhen as some primordial hell from whence you crawl, if we're trying to improve your reputation, it wouldn't hurt to demonstrate that your household is orderly and peaceable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They could, he realizes. Kaer Morhen is never going to be the lap of luxury, but all major repairs to the keep were finished a decade ago, and Jan and his staff manage it with the efficiency of a well-run ship. Accommodating a dozen or so nobles for a few weeks wouldn't strain their resources, and Yen's right, it would probably do them good to show people that the Wolf's den isn't as barbaric as they imagine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But bringing the Redanians to Kaer Morhen means exposing Jaskier to them—and exposing Ciri.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ciri,” he says at last.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer nods. “This move would put her on the game board,” she acknowledges neutrally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's first impulse, immediate and overwhelming, is to say no—that he refuses to reveal her presence to the world and open her up to the predatory interest that people will take in the daughter of the White Wolf. And he can feel that Yen would accept his refusal in this, but... she also wouldn't have suggested it without cause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think it's time for that?” he asks instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer grimaces and spreads her hands like a shrug. “It's as good a time as any. You can't keep her a secret here forever, and this would make a good, controlled opportunity for her first appearance. The Redanian nobles will see her and take word of her to the outside world, without exposing her to any real danger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm afraid it's going to paint a target on her,” he admits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yen doesn't try to deny that. “People are certainly going to be scheming about how to use the White Wolf's daughter to their advantage, but with Ciri tucked up safely in Kaer Morhen, their target might as well be on the moon. And again—this is all going to happen sooner or later, whether she makes her debut now or whether you kick it down the road a few years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's not wrong, of course. Geralt's always known that at some point Ciri would step forward to take her place in the world, as a sorceress trained among witchers and the heir to the White Wolf's empire, but that prospect had always seemed comfortably distant, a future he didn't have to think about yet. With that future suddenly breathing down his neck, he finds himself a lot less sanguine about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And putting a target on Ciri also means putting a target on Kaer Morhen, and despite Yen's faith in its safety, Geralt is well aware that the keep is not impregnable—which the diplomats are going to learn if they visit. Kaer Morhen's walls are thick and strong, but the keep itself is centuries old, and not designed to counter modern siege tactics. Its best defense comes from the terrain itself—the difficulty of getting an army up the Trail (less difficult than it used to be), the lack of level ground at the top to build war engines or camp a large army, and the gorges that prevent Kaer Morhen from being flanked—but it is still a sitting target, and the most dangerous chink in his empire's armor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as Yennefer points out, it's going to happen sooner or later anyway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if sensing her imminent victory, she adds, “Holding the negotiations on your home ground would swing the psychological advantage to you immensely. The whole time they're here, they'll be aware that you could kill them at any time, if provoked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could kill them at any time anyway,” Geralt grumbles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, yes, but being in their own house makes them </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>safer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would they even be willing to come? If they truly believe their lives would be in danger?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer shrugs. “There are carrots, and there are sticks. We emphasize what an </span>
  <em>
    <span>unprecedented honor</span>
  </em>
  <span> it is to be invited to the warlord's keep—and then we remind them that they can't actually say no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mind snags on </span>
  <em>
    <span>can't say no,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he thinks of Jaskier again, back when he first arrived. Bruises on his wrists—</span><em><span>bound with silk ropes,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Eskel had said—which must have been a terrifyingly helpless way to go up the Trail. And all the while dreading what awaited him at the end. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let them come here,” Geralt decides. His eyes flick to Yennefer's. “And no portals—they come on foot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt makes the announcement at dinner that evening, to the general bemusement of the keep's residents. To some, a delegation of foreign visitors is an exciting novelty; to most of the witchers, it's an unwelcome imposition. No one questions Geralt's decision though—for better or worse, they trust him to steer them true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's reaction to the news had been... conflicted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt had pulled him aside earlier that day, to let him know before it was announced publicly—had tried, in fact, to solicit the bard's opinion on making treaty with King Vizimir, only to watch him go increasingly cold and monosyllabic, until, finally, at his wits' end, Geralt said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>For fuck's sake, do you want me to kill this man for you? Because I could just do that instead.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Which startled Jaskier into a laugh, at least, though Geralt could have told him he wasn't kidding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Jaskier said ruefully, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don't—no, you don't need to kill any kings for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't know if they'll even recognize me, but...” He trailed off thinking, then visibly drew himself up. “But if they do, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>them to see me here. They didn't think I was worth anything more than a—” He grimaced and made a little wave instead of finishing that thought. “But they were wrong, and I want them to </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> how wrong they were. I want them to see that I've found a place here, that people value the work I do, that people</span>
  <em>
    <span> care</span>
  </em>
  <span> about me—” His voice broke on that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We do,” Geralt blurted out. He felt out of his depth trying to comfort the man, but seized the words and forced himself to try. “We do. Value you. Care about you. And they'll see that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If it were any of his brothers, Geralt wouldn't have thought twice about putting a hand on his shoulder or tugging him into a rough embrace—to express through actions what none of them are good at expressing with words. But Jaskier is something separate; there'd be nothing casual about touching him, and he doubts that Jaskier could casually receive his touch either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Jaskier said quietly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt swallowed. “You're </span>
  <em>
    <span>ours,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> he said. It was true, even if it wasn't what he wanted to say. “We take care of our own.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Redanian envoys arrive some six weeks later, in the late afternoon. King Vizimir isn't among them—he'd proven unwilling to walk into the belly of the beast himself—but he's sent half a dozen nobles who've been authorized to negotiate terms, plus their assorted entourages, plus several wagon-loads of 'gifts.' Geralt isn't expecting anything terribly useful, but hopefully this round will contain fewer viscounts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jan alerts Geralt to their arrival, reports that they've been shown to their suites and invited to make use of the baths before the formalities that evening. Geralt stays in his office, not eager to deal with the diplomats before he has to, and reviews the reports that have come in from southern Redania over the past year. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vizimir and his cronies are... not terribly nice people, which Geralt already surmised, but not </span>
  <em>
    <span>quite</span>
  </em>
  <span> monstrous enough to clearly justify deposing them. Oh, there's the usual graft, of course—a tax burden levied on the peasantry that pushes right up against the edge of bearable, harsh laws unevenly enforced, and lucrative public endowments that are doled out like favors to his chosen few.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But on the other hand, there are also no reports of country maidens being stolen from their beds for the king's pleasure, no nobles cutting down peasants in the street for sport. No one is being taxed to the point of starvation. The elven inhabitants of Tretegor are ghettoized but tolerated. Slavery is not legally permitted on Redanian soil.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Damnation by faint praise,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt thinks bitterly. But Vizimir's just playing by the rules that all kings set for themselves, and Geralt doubts that any other monarch would even find fault with his behavior. If Geralt conquers the rest of Redania—and plenty of people have jokingly suggested that he might as well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it would make the maps tidier, eh?</span></em><span>—it's not going to look like a just war. That whatever mandate Geralt may have been able to claim before, this would be overreaching it, and would vindicate the people who accuse him of a lust for conquest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So maybe, hopefully, they can resolve this with diplomacy instead of open warfare. Geralt's not eager to take on </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> territory that needs managing, so if Vizimir will agree to some policy changes to improve the lives of his citizenry—and make good on them—then Geralt will let him keep his throne.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although he'd probably still kill the man if Jaskier wanted him to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, once he got over his initial ambivalence, had actually warmed up to the Redanian visit considerably. He's been key to their strategy sessions; he has Yen's blessing to be as politely insulting as his catty little heart desires and has been teaching Ciri how to do the same. And—judging from the hints he's dropped—the song he's debuting this evening is almost certain to be a provocation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But even though Jaskier's loyalty is not in question, Geralt can't shake the worry that the envoys are going to try something with him anyway. He's mulling over that when there's a knock on the door and Yennefer pokes her head in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There you are—hiding from the diplomats already?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grunts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She steps inside and closes the door behind her. “I suppose it could be worse. At least we didn't have to drag you down from the mountain this time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think Jaskier's safe?” he asks. “With the envoys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question takes her by surprise, he can see it on her face, and she considers that as she takes the chair opposite him. “What is it you're afraid they'll do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't know.” He shifts restlessly. “But I can't imagine they'll pass up the chance to try to get information out of him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They can try.” She crosses her legs, unconcerned. “You know he's not going to cooperate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And how well do you think they'll take that?” he demands. “When they realize he's no use to them anymore—that he's a weapon they've placed in enemy hands?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They're here to form an </span>
  <em>
    <span>alliance,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt,” she says, exasperated. “They're not going to be so stupid as to murder the Wolf's favorite bard while they're trapped under his roof.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were stupid enough to throw him away in the first place,” Geralt mutters. He drums his fingers on the desk. “I want our people keeping an eye on him, for as long as the diplomats are here. I don't want them getting him alone for even a minute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer rolls her eyes. “You're not the only one who's fond of him, you know. No one is going to let our little songbird come to harm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that does, in fact, reassure him. Being reminded that Jaskier is not just Geralt's bard, but Kaer Morhen's, and that his brothers will make sure he stays safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds himself rethinking that, however, when the Redanian entourage sweeps into the hall and Jaskier's scent immediately spikes </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrified.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's first impulse to throw them right back out the gates, treaty be damned; Jaskier's terror is all the argument he needs for refusing to parley with these people. It's only Eskel's hand, coming down on his arm with a warning pressure, that keeps him from doing something rash.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel is talking with the diplomats, but Geralt's attention is on the far end of the Wolf table. Aubry has noticed Jaskier's panic too; he asks what's wrong, and refuses to be brushed off when the bard tries to deny it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know one of the envoys,” Jaskier admits unhappily. “We... don't get on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The truth, though likely a massive understatement of it—most people in the keep don't know the real circumstances of Jaskier's arrival at Kaer Morhen, and he's seemed grateful to keep it that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt glances back to the diplomatic party standing before the throne, scrutinizing each one in turn, trying to determine which of these bland human men has Jaskier so rattled. To his eyes, they all look about as menacing as bread dough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he hears Aubry say offhandedly, unconcerned now. “Well, don't worry. You're the White Wolf's—nobody's going to touch you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And—miracle of miracles—that actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>make Jaskier calm down. His scent subsides into something that's not quite his usual vivacity, but isn't that bird-beating-itself-against-the-bars terror anymore, and Geralt can drag his attention back to the ambassadors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The introductions are excruciatingly dull. For every whey-faced inbred who approaches the throne, Geralt has to sit through a recitation of titles and honors as long as his arm, which would no doubt be terribly impressive to someone who gave a fuck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—his lordship, the Count de Lettenhove, secretary of the purse and—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's head comes up. “Lettenhove.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's the first sign of interest he's shown in these proceedings. The herald, startled into silence, doesn't seem to know what to do with the interruption, and the moment hangs in taut silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah—yes, your majesty,” the count says. He plasters on a smile and bows to Geralt, attempting to smooth over the sudden awkwardness. “I do have that honor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So this must be the father, Geralt thinks. He's distantly aware that the other Wolves have picked up on the tension; he can feel the ripple as their eyes turn toward the throne, hackles rising imperceptibly, hostile without question toward anyone who's earned their pack leader's displeasure. In the corner of his eye, he sees Eskel make a short, sharp </span>
  <em>
    <span>stand down</span>
  </em>
  <span> gesture to the Wolves, but Geralt's attention is fixed on Jaskier's father.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He really should be used to it by now, but somehow it still manages to take him by surprise that these men never </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> like the corrupt, twisted predators they are. That this man—a man who could look at one of the most extraordinary people Geralt has ever met, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his own son, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and see him as nothing more than currency to be spent—could be so unspeakably mundane. He should </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> like a monster, not like this monument to mortality, with the jowly cheeks and sagging flesh of any man past his prime, and a gaze that doesn't contain even a tenth of the intelligence that his son's does.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I could cut you down where you stand, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt thinks. He finds himself feeling coldly calm, almost marveling at the simplicity of it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I could tear out your throat right here in front of your fellows, have you swept out like rubbish and tell them to carry on without you. I could send your head back to Tretegor on a pike, and </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>fuck</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> this treaty—</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel clears his throat mildly. “Next.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The diplomats are </span>
  <em>
    <span>utterly</span>
  </em>
  <span> thrown by this breach in protocol, so flustered that they can't even manage to raise an objection. The count gets awkwardly shuffled away from the throne—</span><em><span>without </span>
  </em>
  <span>getting his list of honors read, which isn't even close to what the man deserves, but it's the sort of petty insult that Jaskier would have enjoyed. A shame he'd been too far away to hear it.</span>
</p><p><span>Though this new development means that Geralt is</span> <span>definitely going to be keeping him as far from the envoys as possible. If Jaskier desires an audience with his father, he can have one, but he'll be the one setting the terms of engagement, not the count, and he'll have Geralt at his back for it.</span></p><p>
  <span>Finally, the introductions are over and they disperse for supper, the envoys to a table of their own and Geralt back to his seat with the Wolves. He'd refused to make everyone else wait on their pomp and ceremony before getting fed, so the meal is already well underway by the time he throws himself into his seat and immediately turns to Yennefer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why the fuck is the count here?” he demands in a low voice. “They knew full well we weren't pleased with their </span>
  <em>
    <span>tribute, </span>
  </em>
  <span>what, did they think we'd just fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>forget?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer is watching the diplomats' table through slitted eyes, then she gives a small scoff. “It's unimportant to them, so why would it be important to us?” she asks rhetorically. “The count has so thoroughly divested himself of his son's memory that I think perhaps </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>forgot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then maybe someone ought to remind him,” Geralt says, feeling grim. One of the diplomats looks up and catches his black glower, then turns pale and quickly looks away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we still having Jaskier perform tonight?” she asks quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only if he wants to.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glances down to the far end of the table, where Jaskier is frowning and systematically shredding a roll of bread, his scent becoming increasingly queasy. Then, as if he can feel Geralt's eyes on him, he looks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt doesn't know how to make him understand that </span>
  <em>
    <span>you don't have to do this if you don't want to, </span>
  </em>
  <span>how to convey </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'll keep you safe. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But maybe he manages some part of it anyway, because as he holds Jaskier's gaze, the bard takes a breath and sits up straighter. His shoulders square and his scent shifts from apprehension to resolve, and he sets his jaw and gives Geralt a nod.</span>
</p><p><span>Then Jaskier stands and all at once he is </span><em><span>performing</span></em><span>—a flawless rendition of himself. Geralt has no doubt it would fool human eyes, but the dissonance between his breezy smile and the distress still coming off him is uncanny. It takes Geralt back to their first meeting, and even though he has no doubt that the bard can pull this off—that he can white-knuckle his way through the song without breaking character—Geralt's not sure that he</span> <span>can sit by and watch Jaskier put himself through that.</span></p><p>
  <span>But instead of making straight for the dais, or for the center of the hall as he does for more interactive performances, Jaskier takes his time and weaves a circuitous route between the tables. He's letting people notice him, exchanging greetings and jokes and jostles as he passes, letting a slow swell of anticipation rise. Grounding himself, Geralt realizes—drawing strength from the connections he's made in his year here, from the camaraderie of the witchers who've embraced him as one of Kaer Morhen's own. By the time he takes his position at the center of the hall, his confidence is no longer an act.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lords and ladies and witchers,” he announces grandly, well-practiced by now at making himself heard throughout the hall. “In honor of our </span>
  <em>
    <span>esteemed </span>
  </em>
  <span>Redanian guests, tonight I will be performing my newest song of the White Wolf. A tale from their homeland—ahem, sorry, </span>
  <em>
    <span>former</span>
  </em>
  <span> homeland—a tale of deepest villainy and greatest heroism, may I present—” He pauses, and looks directly at the diplomats' table. His feelings are now entirely congruent with his smile, hard-edged and glittering. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“—Ghelibol Burning.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And he begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To be honest, Ghelibol is not something that Geralt is ever going to be comfortable hearing praise for—because it wasn't a victory, it was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>mistake. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He let his anger get the better of him, and he has no excuse for that. Even if the citizens were given ample warning to take what they could carry and run, it was still so much meaningless destruction, to no purpose—because it wasn't like vengeance was going to bring back the slaughtered elves, or teach the people any lesson except to hate the White Wolf for burning them from their homes. It was petty, and vindictive, something he remembers with private shame, and it fired the rumors about the Wolf's brutal cruelty—all the worse because this time it was true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though to hear Jaskier tell it, the city was a comprehensive nest of villains who brought about their own destruction through their misdeeds—with the White Wolf like an Old God of vengeance, descending from the heavens in righteous fury to smite the city flat for its sins. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's as scrupulously well-researched as any of his songs, but far, far bloodier—there are no tactful omissions or delicate euphemisms when he describes the atrocities visited on the elves there, the horror of those blood-soaked weeks of mob violence leading up to the marquess's last, chillingly final purge. Geralt isn't familiar with all of the incidents he sings about, but enough that he has no doubt they're all true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nor had there been anyone left to save by the time they got there—just mass graves and piles of corpses still belching their foul, greasy smoke into the sky. Breathing in the ash of people who'd been burned alive, a detail that Jaskier doesn't flinch from, as the marquess was dragged from his palace and thrown to his knees, and Geralt had looked at him and said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Burn it down.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was the one who had brokered the treaty that left the marquess in power. He had promised the elves that they would be safe in Ghelibol, and Ghelibol had made an oath-breaker of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's not a tidy morality play, not truly—there were too many innocents caught up in the crossfire for Geralt to pretend like his actions were justified. The burning of Ghelibol was a wretchedness that he will never be proud of, but if there's anyone who can pull a shred of meaning from its ashes, it's Jaskier. If he can make </span>
  <em>
    <span>something worthwhile </span>
  </em>
  <span>out of all that senseless misery—if he can turn it into a warning to the tyrants, to remind them that they have a predator of their own, and maybe, gods willing, keep it from ever happening again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Jaskier sings the song to its close, it's with a pointed warning for anyone who might follow the marquess's example to </span>
  <em>
    <span>remember you the razèd lands of Ghelibol a-burning. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He's circled back round to the high table and he's looking Geralt straight in the eye, alight from the inside out with something fierce and proud and loyal—like he believes in Geralt's cause, believes that Geralt really is the hero he would sing into being. That he burns with the same fury that's in Geralt's heart when he calls these monsters to account for their sins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finishes with a bang and drops smartly into a bow, and the hall is on its feet before the last, ringing chord has even died out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's hairline is damp with sweat, chest heaving as he hangs there a moment to catch his breath, the hall roaring its approval all around him. Then he straightens and meets Geralt's eyes, flushed and fearless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Geralt may not be proud of Ghelibol, but he is proud of Jaskier—he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>proud</span>
  </em>
  <span> of his beautiful bard. Proud of his keen mind and generous heart, of his talent and courage and resilience, and his willingness to press it all into Geralt's service.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn't usually make a show of his approval—the witchers don't need his permission to like Jaskier's music—but this time he makes certain to grace the bard with a slow, stately nod, in full view of the Redanian table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier's answering grin is ferocious. He drops into another bow, not an empty gesture but one full of loyalty, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fealty, </span>
  </em>
  <span>pouring from him like an offering that he would lay at Geralt's feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Jaskier returns to his end of the table, the entertainment moves on to other things. It's good lively fun, and the crowd is still fired up from Jaskier's performance, but Geralt is hard-pressed to give it his proper attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He badly wants a chance to speak with Jaskier, privately, and find out how he feels about his father's presence there. Geralt may be proud of him for keeping his head through this evening's performance, but he hasn't forgotten that moment of heart-stopping terror when Jaskier first laid eyes on the count.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Jaskier slips away as soon as he can politely manage it, and Geralt can't exactly get up in the middle of the banquet and follow him; all he can do is grit his teeth and send Aubry to make sure the bard reaches his quarters unaccosted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's past midnight before he can finally call an end to the evening; Ciri's been long since shuffled off to bed, the envoys look dead on their feet, and even Yennefer is starting to flag. For his part, Geralt had forgotten how exhausting it is to just </span>
  <em>
    <span>sit </span>
  </em>
  <span>for so many hours.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We'll discuss strategy in the morning?” Yen asks as they part ways in front of his door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt scowls. “I still haven't ruled out throwing them off the fucking mountain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She just laughs and pats his cheek before turning away to her rooms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wakes the next morning with a clearer head, though all his newfound clarity tells him is that he loathes having these people in his house and wants them gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The negotiations don't start until the afternoon, so Geralt eats breakfast in his office, does some vague strategizing with Yen, and takes periodic updates from the witchers keeping an eye on Jaskier. (Which feels uncomfortably like </span>
  <em>
    <span>stalking </span>
  </em>
  <span>him, but Geralt is also not going to risk otherwise until he's had a chance to talk to him.) He learns that the bard had requested breakfast sent up from the kitchen and eaten in his quarters; that Lambert escorted him to his lessons with Ciri and they're now safely ensconced in the tower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps an eye on the clock, and then times a trip to the tower to coincide with the end of Jaskier's lessons. He arrives at their sitting room to find Ciri jumping on the couch and breathlessly belting out a fast-paced song that seems to be some kind of history lesson.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Papa!” Ciri shouts when she sees him, springing off the couch and launching herself at his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind her, Jaskier is packing up his lesson materials, though he looks up and smiles at the sight of Geralt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to hear a song!” She doesn't wait for his response before she starts up again, so Geralt hoists her up onto his shoulders and lets her thump her heels against him in time to the beat. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Edwina Florentina took her navy to Redania / She said to poor King Filip ‘Gimme gold or else I'm slayin' ya’ / So Filip went to Cintra and he...”</span>
  </em>
</p><p><span>Ciri is still singing when Yennefer comes by to collect her, while Jaskier is—Geralt is almost certain—intentionally dawdling. Yennefer takes one glance at Ciri and shoots Geralt a dire look that says, </span><em><span>You give her to me when she's like </span></em><b><em>this?</em></b> <span>but takes her hand and even lets her start the song over again as they head off.</span></p><p>
  <span>Then he's left alone with Jaskier, as Ciri's bouncy voice fades away down the corridor, and suddenly finds himself feeling acutely off-balance. It's not the first time they've been alone together, but it's the first time they've been alone in </span>
  <em>
    <span>private,</span>
  </em>
  <span> with no danger of interruption and with Geralt's bedroom behind a closed door less than ten feet away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt clears his throat. “Would you like an escort to your quarters?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh!” Jaskier gives a small laugh, drops his eyes. “Oh no, I'm sure you're busy,” he demurs. “I couldn't ask that of you—”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You could, you really could.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“—but if your lordship </span>
  <em>
    <span>insists, </span>
  </em>
  <span>I wouldn't say no,” he finishes hopefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't notice the beat of silence that follows, and then Geralt just inclines his head toward the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although now that he's got Jaskier, he's not sure how to broach the subject. He knows that family relationships can be... fraught and contradictory, and he doesn't presume to know Jaskier's feelings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you write that song?” he asks instead. “The one Ciri was singing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier brightens. “Of course! And it's worked a treat for teaching Ciri her royals, but I haven't done a patter song in ages and </span>
  <em>
    <span>ye gods </span>
  </em>
  <span>the scansion on some of those lines is </span>
  <em>
    <span>embarrassing.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Do you know how hard it is to fit 'Wilhelmet Malgorzata the Third' into any sort of rhythm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assume you're about to tell me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier throws his head back and laughs, a bright and happy sound. “Don't worry, I'll spare you. But you should know that you are in possession of an </span>
  <em>
    <span>exceptionally</span>
  </em>
  <span> clever bard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Believe me, I know.” It comes out perhaps more honest than he'd meant it to, because it makes Jaskier stumble a little, blinking in surprise, and steals whatever he'd been about to say next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They pass the dining hall and briefly come face-to-face with one of the diplomats—not Jaskier's father, thank fuck—who freezes, then bobs his head at them like a pigeon and scurries on his way. Beside him, he hears Jaskier sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose this must all seem pretty stupid to you,” Jaskier says quietly. “Being so afraid of him. Since you could break him in half if you wanted to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It's not stupid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just—it makes me so </span>
  <em>
    <span>angry</span>
  </em>
  <span> with myself.” His fist clenches at his side. “That just seeing him from across the room is enough to make me fall apart. I have worked </span>
  <em>
    <span>so hard</span>
  </em>
  <span> to become a stronger person than I was. To be </span>
  <em>
    <span>proud </span>
  </em>
  <span>of who I am, of what I've accomplished, and I'll think I've done it... until he walks in, and then all at once I'm twelve years old and helpless again.” His voice drops, barely above a whisper as he says, “He makes me small. And I hate it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the count were here right now, Geralt would be very tempted to put his hand on the man's neck and </span>
  <em>
    <span>choke him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You're not,” Geralt says, willing him to believe that. Because he's not the one who's clever with words—he doesn't know how to make Jaskier understand what he means to Geralt, to Kaer Morhen, to make him recognize the magnitude of what he's accomplished here. “The last thing you are is small.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Jaskier says. Then he huffs a sigh. “I feel like I've been saying that to you a lot recently.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They're at Jaskier's door now, lingering in the corridor outside and neither of them mentioning it, as if Jaskier is as reluctant to part as Geralt is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can have him thrown out of the castle,” Geralt offers at last. “He can camp outside the gates until the negotiations are over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier snorts an unsteady laugh. “No, that won't be necessary. You don't need to upset the peace talks on my account.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They seem to have different ideas about what constitutes </span>
  <em>
    <span>need.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier sighs and scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. His eyes are tired and bruised-looking, like he didn't get much sleep the night before. “Just... as long as I don't have to talk to him?” he says, almost pleading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don't,” Geralt promises. “You'll have every witcher in the keep looking out for you. And if someone manages to corner you anyway, just raise your voice and I'll be there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier gives him a ghost of a smile, then lifts his hand into a fist and mimes a teasing little punch at him. “Creepy witchers and their eavesdropping.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier starts to withdraw again, but on impulse Geralt reaches up and catches his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he can't remember what he'd been about to say, because suddenly all of his awareness is centered on Jaskier's wrist caught between his fingers, skin so soft over delicate bones, his pulse beating rabbit-fast against Geralt's fingertips. Jaskier is holding himself very still, like he's afraid any movement will break the spell. His eyes are locked on Geralt's light grip on his wrist and every line in his body seems to be pleading </span>
  <em>
    <span>don't stop, don't stop, don't stop—</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't resist as Geralt turns his hand over, lays his thumb in the center of his palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ask me for the things you want, the things you need, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt wants to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Because I can't afford to put my finger on the scale, but if you </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>ask me,</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> I can give it to you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you…” he starts to say, then breaks off at a noise—a sharp rustle of cloth, and his head swings up to catch the swish of a diplomat's robes disappearing back around the corner. Suspiciously far away from anywhere they have any business being, and Geralt feels his eyes narrow and his fingers tighten over Jaskier's wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks to Jaskier and gives him a tight nod that says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'll deal with this. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Then he lets go of him and leaves to pursue the fleeing diplomat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt catches up with him in the next hallway over—he's setting a brisk pace back toward the dining hall, but not brisk enough—and the man nearly jumps out of his skin when Geralt's arm lands heavily over his shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look lost,” Geralt says. He flashes the man a smile with too many teeth. “It's not a good idea to get lost in my castle. You might not find your way back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ahh—my apologies, your majesty,” the man stammers out. “I didn't—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt gives him a jovial squeeze that grinds the bones in his shoulder. “An innocent mistake, I'm sure. Let me show you back to your wing—and then you'll show me which room the Count de Lettenhove is in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count's door is locked when Geralt tries the handle, but he breaks it with a negligent twist and lets himself inside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What in the—your majesty!” the count begins, outrage transmuting into... stifled outrage, when he realizes who's intruding on him so boldly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count is standing half-dressed, with a valet kneeling at his side to do up the ties along one trouser leg, torn between embarrassment and indignation. “This is highly irregular—” he begins, bringing up his arms in an aborted effort to cover his half-naked bulk, furred and deflated as it is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt makes eye contact with the valet and nods toward the door. “Out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man doesn't even look to the count for permission before scrambling to his feet and bolting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your majesty,” the count grits out. “If you would allow me but a moment to finish dressing, I would be happy to join you in the—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt takes a seat in the nearby chair and kicks his heels up on the desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count breaks off with clenched teeth. He forces a sour smile as he gathers up the clothes laid out across the bed, and then scurries into the adjoining room so he doesn't have to get dressed under the Wolf's silent stare. When he comes back a few moments later, disheveled but clad, his self-possession seems to have been restored.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assume this is about Julian?” he says, his tone making it clear how tedious he finds the subject of his son. There isn't a second chair, so he's forced to hover awkwardly in the center of the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His name is Jaskier,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Geralt thinks, but says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count sniffs. “I don't know what kind of wild tales he's been telling you, but the boy always was prone to exaggeration.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Funny—since Jaskier's told no tales at all. The count's name has come up in discussions of Redanian politics a few times, but everything that Jaskier's said about his father has been scrupulously impersonal. He's never talked about growing up in Lettenhove, never placed himself within the context of Redanian society; as if he doesn't have a history, just sprang fully-formed from the rocky soil in front of Kaer Morhen's gates, already Jaskier the bard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt keeps his steady gaze on the count. “And what kind of tales would he have told me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks of Jaskier, paralyzed with fear from just a glimpse of his father across a crowded room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of Jaskier saying, </span>
  <em>
    <span>He makes me small.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pfft,” the count says dismissively. He gives an irritable tug at the ties on his cuffs, but can't manage them one-handed. “The usual nonsense of a child acting out for attention. He always did think himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>put-upon.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Never satisfied with what he had, always blowing things out of proportion, always shirking his responsibilities.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, responding to Ciri's affection like a flower opening to the sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, so keen at reading what people want from him, and so quick to try to give it to them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, who never feels like he has the standing to ask for anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I would trade the riches of a kingdom for a word of praise from you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt realizes, abruptly, how unintentionally cruel he's been by refusing to be vocal with his appreciation—that in his silence are the echoes of a childhood where nothing Jaskier did was ever good enough. Geralt honestly hadn't thought it mattered—the bard has plenty of other, far more outspoken admirers, why would he need Geralt adding to that din—but they weren't the target of his efforts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Geralt</span>
  </em>
  <span> is the one he's been trying so hard to please, the one whose approval he's been seeking, and Jaskier deserves to know that he has it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If that boy had an ounce of gratitude he would have </span>
  <em>
    <span>thanked </span>
  </em>
  <span>me for this,” the count continues, gaining momentum now. “He's certainly done well enough for himself here. I did him a favor by sending him to your court, by helping him to such a position, not that he'll ever appreciate it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, all but shattering when Eskel asked him what he was good for. The dull recitation of his talents, concluding with the only one that actually mattered: </span>
  <em>
    <span>And I've been told I'm a good lay.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sent him to be a sex slave, not a musician,” Geralt says bluntly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count draws himself up with affront. “I did no such thing! That's my own flesh and blood you're speaking of! I gave my </span>
  <em>
    <span>son </span>
  </em>
  <span>into your service, and you can't pretend as though he hasn't found favor with you. Redania sent you our best, our brightest—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>believes </span>
  </em>
  <span>this, Geralt marvels. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>believes</span>
  </em>
  <span> the unassailable cloak of lies that he's wrapped himself in. Warping reality around him until he's always justified, always righteous, utterly incapable of guilt or error. Tearing down his son with unthinking ease, and with such casual certainty in his words that it sounds like Truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt has a flash of what Jaskier, creative and affectionate by nature, must have endured as a child in this man's household, and it strikes him as nothing short of a miracle that Jaskier's light survived at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count is still ranting, still too caught up in his own importance to understand that nothing he is or has means anything here. Not his rank nor his wealth, his power nor his connections, afford him any degree of protection from the Wolf, and yet he remains too stupidly self-absorbed to see when he's outmatched. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there's no getting through to him. Geralt had come here with a half-formed notion to grab this man by the scruff of the neck and force him to confront the wrongs he did his son—but it's not going to happen. The count is never going to repent or regret, because he's incapable of either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt takes his feet off the desk and stands. “I don't care,” he says, cutting the count off mid-sentence. “Just stay away from him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He's </span>
  <em>
    <span>my son, </span>
  </em>
  <span>I have every right—!” the count begins, taking a step forward and drawing up his bulk to loom large, fists rising at his sides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's a display of violence that probably works a treat for menacing children.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt catches him by the wrist, yanks him around and kicks his legs out from under him. The count goes to his knees against the stone with a crack that probably didn't break anything, heaving with pain and exertion as Geralt pivots his arm around and pins it neatly at the center of his back. He struggles, but even a man his size is no match for witcher strength.</span>
</p><p><span>“No,” Geralt says. “You forfeited that claim. He's not </span><em><span>your</span></em> <em><span>son </span></em><span>anymore, he's </span><em><span>my bard. </span></em><span>And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from him.”</span></p><p>
  <span>The count hangs there, breathing through gritted teeth, nothing in his scent but anger and defiance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt gives his arm a slow pull upward, until he hears the count's pained grunt. “Stay the fuck away from Jaskier,” he repeats. “Stay the fuck out of the treaty talks. I don't want to see your face again while you're here. Do you understand?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can't,” the count starts, panting, “you can't exclude me from—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I can do </span>
  <em>
    <span>much </span>
  </em>
  <span>worse than that,” Geralt assures him. “So unless you want my bard's next song to be about Lettenhove burning, I suggest you do as I say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count clenches his jaw and doesn't answer, but his outrage is now tinged with resentment, which is probably the closest a man like him comes to admitting defeat. Geralt lets go of him and steps off, doesn't bother to reiterate his warning as he leaves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next few days don't exactly go </span>
  <em>
    <span>well, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but they go without incident. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The treaty negotiations are... happening. The count manages to make himself scarce, thankfully, although the other diplomats in the entourage aren't much of an improvement. They've perfected the art of making unreasonable demands in a reasonable-sounding tone of voice, and when those demands are rebuffed, simply repeating them, </span>
  <em>
    <span>over and over again.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It's not going to get them what they want, but it does make the negotiations extremely tedious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Redanians are also still trying to get at Jaskier—they've been spotted loitering in the halls near his quarters or Triss's workshop, waiting for a chance to ambush him. Thus far they've been stymied by the witchers who always happen to wander by whenever Jaskier's on the move, always conveniently headed the same direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt, selfishly, has taken it upon himself to be the one who escorts Jaskier from the tower after Ciri's lessons, and he's been glad to see a marked improvement in the bard's mood. Jaskier complains that the witchers are mother-henning him, but his scent is pleased and affectionate, so it's clearly not a real objection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, their luck doesn't manage to hold out forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The talks have broken for lunch, which Geralt is eating in his office and reviewing some household expenses with Jan, when Jaskier's voice catches his ear—Jaskier, who's supposed to be safely upstairs with Triss, now talking to someone in the dining hall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—I am, no thanks to you,” he hears Jaskier say, his voice tense but admirably steady. </span>
</p><p><span>And then the count's talking, still bloated with his own importance, and </span><em><span>for fuck's</span></em> <em><span>sake, some people just </span></em><b><em>never fucking learn</em></b><b>—</b></p><p>
  <span>Geralt is already in motion, vaulting over his desk and leaving Jan agape and slightly alarmed behind him, pushing out of his office into the dining hall. Because the count already got his warning, and if he was too stupid to heed it then Geralt is </span>
  <em>
    <span>done </span>
  </em>
  <span>with him, he will drag that man across the keep by his thinning hair and drop him off the battlements—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then he brings himself up short, coming to a halt in the shadowed archways ringing the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Jaskier is still talking with his father, but... there isn't actually any fear in his scent. He's not enjoying the confrontation, to be sure, but he isn't cowed by it; his father's bluster is truly having no effect on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And suddenly Geralt doesn't know if he should intervene. Whether he should keep his word, that Jaskier wouldn't have to talk to this man, or whether Jaskier needs to prove to himself that he can do this—that he can go face to face with his father and stand his ground. Whether that might finally pull the teeth from the monster that preys on his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Jaskier shifts, lifting his head almost imperceptibly to where Geralt is standing in shadow, and a triumphant smile touches his lips. He looks back to his father, and there's clear confidence in his voice when he says, “Just a word of advice—witchers can tell when you're lying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Geralt feels it—the moment when the last of Jaskier's anxiety fades. When whatever lingering hold his father still had on him finally slips free, and his fear passes out of anger and into indifference. That nothing the count says or does can faze him now, because they're in Kaer Morhen and this is Jaskier's place, surrounded by his people, and he is safe and strong and he knows it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count is still blustering, oblivious to the fact that he's already lost. Jaskier's not paying him any heed; he's focused on his awareness of Geralt, serene in his faith in him. And Jaskier may not need rescuing, but his fucking father does—because the man's drawing himself up for violence now, and if he succeeds in striking Jaskier, he's going to be leaving Kaer Morhen in a box.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt strides forward. The count's eyes fall on him first and whatever he sees on Geralt's face finally, </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally </span>
  </em>
  <span>breaks through the impenetrable haze of his self-absorption. He's belatedly realized that this is not a rival but a </span>
  <em>
    <span>predator,</span>
  </em>
  <span> that he is staring his own death in the face, and he goes white, falling back a step from Jaskier, his half-raised hand forgotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier doesn't startle when Geralt's hand lands on his back and slides upward to close possessively over his shoulder; he leans into the touch without hesitation, like he was expecting it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt locks eyes with the count. “If you lay a single hand on him,” he says, enunciating clearly, because apparently anything short of a direct threat is lost on this man, “I will </span>
  <em>
    <span>cut it off.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Try me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks with a grim smile. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Just try it, give me an excuse.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The count is aware of his error by now, the whites around his eyes are stark rings as he pants and edges backward, like the pathetic little bully he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You gave him to me,” Geralt reiterates, and from the look on the count's face he's actually fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>getting it </span>
  </em>
  <span>this time. “He is </span>
  <em>
    <span>mine.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Under his palm, he feels the swell of breath that Jaskier draws in, his scent </span>
  <em>
    <span>exulting </span>
  </em>
  <span>in that, thrilling with fierce joy at Geralt's claim.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You gave me away,” Jaskier points out with a cheery shrug. A breathless laugh ripples through him, like he's realizing for the first time that it doesn't hurt anymore. He lets his head tilt against Geralt's shoulder. “You can hardly complain if my loyalty now lies with a far finer king than Redania’s.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt feels his breath catch. Because it's not as if he didn't already know that he had Jaskier's loyalty, but it's something else entirely to </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear </span>
  </em>
  <span>it—to hear Jaskier stand up before the world and declare his allegiance, proud and unhesitating, to hear Jaskier unmistakably, joyfully choose </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>over all others. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This is what I want,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he realizes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, standing with him like an equal, fearless in his words and his emotions, confident in his place at Geralt's side. To have Jaskier choosing his own destiny, and choosing for it to be with Geralt. It's what Geralt's spent the better part of a year not even daring to dream of, because he never believed that Jaskier would be able to come this far, but he can, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>has.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This may be a temporary high emboldening him now, but he's proven that he's capable of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the first time, it doesn't feel like a fantasy that Jaskier could someday stand side by side with the White Wolf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The count starts to draw himself up, like he's actually going to be stupid enough to argue, but Geralt is completely uninterested in hearing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Go,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he snaps, a warning that anyone with an ounce of sense would heed—and it turns out the count has at least that much, because he finally turns tail and runs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Under his arm he feels Jaskier moving with laughter, feels him curl inward without thinking and press his forehead to his shoulder. Geralt lets his hands come up to rest on Jaskier's arms, lets himself breathe in the air at his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Jaskier whispers, hands fisted against the front of Geralt's doublet. He's shaking with laughter that's verging on tears, but there's nothing in his scent except relief, and joy, and something that tastes almost like love. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Thank you.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“—and the Duke de Roggeven, being eager to return to his ancestral estate, commends his fervent wishes that a compromise can be reached on the issue of administration in the—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer cuts the man off with a laugh like glass breaking. “Don't be droll. We've occupied the lands north of Roggeven for two and a half years now, and I fail to see what Redania could possibly offer for their return. If the duke desires an ancestral estate, then he'd best build himself a new one, because the castle in Roggeven has already been carted off brick by brick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt doesn't know whether that's true, or whether she intends to make it true by the day's end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just so, my lady, but the duke desires...” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt bites back a sigh as the diplomat launches into the exact same demand again, worded only slightly differently. He tries to catch Eskel's eye for an exchange of solidarity, but of the three of them, Eskel is the only one managing a credible show of attentiveness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To be honest, Geralt is having even more trouble paying attention to the discussion than usual, not only because it's <em>fucking asinine,</em> but because every time he lets his mind wander, he finds himself replaying the events from yesterday. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier, standing confident and proud at his side; Jaskier, pressing eagerly into his touch. Jaskier at supper that evening, still glowing with triumph as he played for Ciri, his eyes full of promise every time they inexorably found their way to Geralt's. He'd slipped away before they had a chance to speak privately, but Geralt had gone to bed that night with his mind whirling around thoughts of Jaskier—for the first time, allowing himself to imagine the possibility of a <em>future</em> for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before, Jaskier had been... a nice thought. A temptation, that Geralt could entertain himself with the occasional fantasy of succumbing to, but nothing he'd had any expectations for in reality. Jaskier was never going to close the gap between them, and Geralt had resigned himself to that. Sooner or later, the bard would find someone whose presence he was more comfortable in, and he'd get over his infatuation with Geralt, and that would be the end of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except then Jaskier <em>did </em>close that gap, and suddenly all of the possibilities that Geralt had never let himself imagine are unfolding before him—making it even more tedious to sit through this diplomatic doublespeak, when all he wants to do is go find Jaskier and see what happens next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt's presence here is largely irrelevant anyway, more symbolic than functional. The diplomats don't address anything substantive to him, preferring to deal with Eskel, or even Yennefer's caustic disdain—because they may fear Geralt, but they don't respect him. To these men who don't recognize any authority that wasn't derived from an accident of birth, Geralt might as well be a horse that someone stuck a crown on—an intolerable upstart whose very existence is an affront to their sensibilities. It galls them that a commoner, a mercenary thug, a <i>monster</i> has presumed to place himself on their level, and they go through their resentful obeisances with gritted teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The one currently blithering to Eskel spares a moment to give Geralt an ingratiating smile. “...if <em>his majesty, </em>in his wisdom, permits it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>It really is astonishing how much disdain these people can pack into a </span>
    <em>your majesty. </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Geralt's grown accustomed to the bows and the </span>
    <em>my-lords</em>
    <span> from the staff at Kaer Morhen, </span>
    <span>because even as uncomfortable as it makes him, he learned long ago that trying to dispense with honorifics is a battle he's not going to win. People seem to find the titles soothing, and trying to force the servants to address the warlord like a peer only generates more confusion and anxiety than it's worth.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But those, at least, are sincerely meant—in the mouths of the Redanians, <em>your majesty</em> sounds like an insult, laced through with irony and contempt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“—concerning the marriage of Lady Cirilla—” the diplomat is saying, which brings him back to the discussion in a hurry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>No.</em>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The diplomat gives him a cloying smile. “We <em>understand</em> that your majesty is quite—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm sorry, did he mumble?” Eskel interrupts mildly. “His answer was no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And we, of course, have the <em>utmost respect</em> for <em>his majesty's</em> wishes,” the man says unctuously. “We only ask that he consider, in the interests of establishing a lasting peace between the Wolf's holdings and Redania—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only matters if there's still a Redania,” Geralt growls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That's followed by a moment of taut silence, and then Eskel politely clears his throat. “Did you wish to continue arguing, or...?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The envoys, wisely, concede the point, and the discussion is allowed to move on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Five full days of this, and every line of this fucking treaty has been like pulling teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Yennefer's touch brushes across his mind. </span>
    <em>You know they're doing this on purpose, right? </em>
    <span>she says. </span>
    <em>They're hoping you'll get fed up and sign whatever they put in front of you, just to make them go away.</em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That is the opposite of what happens when I get fed up, </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>Geralt points out.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels her laugh, and then withdraw again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After another hour of bowing and scraping and <em>your-majesties, </em>of insincere smiles stretched over diplomatic lies, they finally, <em>finally</em> break for lunch, and Geralt makes an exit that's probably too hasty to be polite.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ciri's lessons are long since over and the midday meal is in full swing, so instead of heading to the tower, Geralt makes directly for Jaskier's quarters. He knocks, uncertain where he'll look next if Jaskier isn't there, but it's only a moment before he hears footsteps on the other side of the door. Apparently the bard's feeling secure in the keep again, because he opens the door without hesitation. He's in a state of casual undress, doublet undone and hanging open to reveal the soft linen undershirt below, and when he sees Geralt, he lights up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My lord!” Jaskier exclaims, sweeping a bow and thus missing Geralt's wince. “An unexpected pleasure! How might I be of service?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I...” Geralt begins uncertainly. Because Jaskier's giving him an expectant look, but <em>I'd hoped you would throw yourself into my arms </em>suddenly feels a bit presumptuous. Not to mention that the glimpse of skin and dark hair in the low, loose vee of his shirt is disproportionately distracting. “...thought I'd see how you were doing. After yesterday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier lets out a breathy laugh and rubs a hand over the back of his neck, looking like he still can't quite believe it himself. “Honestly? I've never been better. I feel like a weight that I've spent my whole life carrying has finally been lifted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's in good spirits, a bubbly mixture of pleasure and excitement that tastes like spring water, and he's genuinely happy to see Geralt, but...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Jaskier says sincerely. He lifts his eyes then, very wide and very blue. “For—more than I can ever say, my lord.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...but he's back to keeping himself at arm's length, back to <em>my-lords </em>and carefully-guarded longing, and when he smiles at Geralt, it's from the other side of the gulf between them. As if yesterday never happened, and nothing's changed, and Geralt feels his heart sink. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You knew this was going to happen,</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> he reminds himself, trying to swallow down his disappointment. He'd known that as soon as the high wore off, Jaskier would return to his usual deference, like he always did. Geralt just hadn't been able to keep from hoping that maybe </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>this time</em>
    <span> it would last, that Jaskier would hang onto some of that courage.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he's back to looking at Jaskier as if through glass—something beautiful and distant and untouchable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier gives another laugh, a slightly nervous one this time, as the silence starts to strain. “Well. Uhm.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt hears footsteps come round the corner, just as Jaskier's eyes land on someone behind him and palpable relief blooms on his face. “Lambert! Fancy meeting you here!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do yourself up, Buttercup, you're indecent,” Lambert drawls as he saunters over to join them. He flicks at the ties on Jaskier's undershirt. “For fuck's sake, there's children about.”</span>
</p><p>“Says the man who once forgot his towels and decided to walk naked halfway across the keep,” Jaskier counters, swatting Lambert's hand away with a playful familiarity that he's never extended to Geralt. He starts doing up the buttons on his doublet though, and Geralt tries not to stare as that glimpse of skin disappears again.
</p><p>
  <span>“Eh, pretty sure it was more than once,” Lambert says with a game shrug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lambert's tone is light, but he's picked up on the tense undercurrent in the air, and his eyes cut to Geralt, questioning. It's subtle enough that Jaskier doesn't notice it, just the slightest trace of a frown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” Geralt asks, trying to keep it from sounding like an accusation but probably failing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lambert's eyebrows rise. “Making my regularly scheduled, entirely coincidental afternoon stroll that just happens to take me past Jaskier's quarters and then up to Triss's stillroom?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right. Exactly as Geralt had asked his witchers to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lambert gives him a <em>look </em>and adds pointedly, “Unless my services aren't required today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt is so wrong-footed that he doesn't even know how to extricate himself from this. He hadn't realized his presence would disrupt a routine that had been operating smoothly without him, and feels as painfully intrusive as he ever did when his Path took him through human settlements that had no space for a creature like him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By now even Jaskier's noticed the odd stand-off that seems to be happening on his doorstep, eyes darting uncertainly between Geralt and Lambert. “I... assumed I was helping Triss today?” he hazards, then looks to Geralt, his expression turning hopeful. “Unless... you had need of me, my lord?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt feels his jaw tighten again, and shakes his head. “No.” Because Jaskier has his own business to attend to, and Geralt has no excuse for keeping him. “Carry on.” He forces himself to turn away, giving Lambert a nod and a clap on the shoulder as he goes. “Thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if there's a hint of rueful sympathy on Lambert's face, well—he doesn't have to acknowledge that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's still in a mood when he gets back to his office and finds Yen sitting in her usual chair, picking at a plate of fruit. She looks up with a smirk when he enters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So how fares our favorite bard?” she asks. Then, at whatever she sees or reads in him, her smile fades. “He lost his nerve again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don't want to talk about it.” Geralt sits down with the plate he brought from the dining hall and starts to eat, avoiding her eyes.</span>
</p><p>Which is an answer witchers accept from each other, for lack of ability to deflect with polite lies. Yen has lived among them long enough that after a moment's dissatisfaction she accepts it too, even though she'd clearly <em>like</em> to force the subject.
</p><p>They haven't discussed Jaskier's... infatuation since that conversation last summer. Geralt is aware that Yen's one-year deadline has come and gone, and he doesn't know whether or not she's made good on her threat to talk to the bard. He finds himself reluctant to ask though—either she's holding off, for reasons of her own, or else she's already told Jaskier that his advances would be welcome and <em>he's</em> holding off, for reasons of his own. Geralt's not sure which possibility would be worse.
</p><p>
  <span>The bell rings half-past noon, a distant chime in the clocktower that feels like a noose tightening around Geralt's neck, reminding him that he has only a scant half-hour of freedom before it's back to the treaty talks. It's telling that he's faced down literal monsters with less dread than he feels at the prospect of more hours trapped in a room with those men.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yen, is there any way to make the talks go faster?” he says at last. “The Redanians are stalling—they know it, and we know it, and this is pointless. They're going to die of old age before it gets them the treaty they want, but I'd rather not have them in Kaer Morhen that long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yennefer shrugs. “Axii them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>Yen.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? I doubt any of them are strong-willed enough to resist. Or if you don't want to get your hands dirty, I could do it. They certainly wouldn't be able to resist <em>that.”</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rubs the bridge of his nose. “We talked about this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And we agreed not to influence anyone who was engaging in good-faith negotiations,” she points out, a trifle smugly. “The Redanians are not, which makes them fair game, as far as I'm concerned.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there a way to hasten the talks that <em>won't </em>make other kings refuse to parley with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, my next suggestion was going to be putting a knife to their necks, but...” she trails off, spreads her hands. “If you want the negotiations to go faster, then stop arguing with them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits up straight, brows drawing together in a frown. “You can't be serious. You heard what they were hoping to do with Ciri—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn't say you had to <em>agree </em>to their proposals. Just say 'we'll consider it,' let them move on, and we'll strike it from the draft before you sign anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So all the same bullshit, just kicking it down the line?” The prospect of having to go through this again at some later date makes him feel unutterably weary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wanted them out. Once they're gone, you can start rattling the sabers at the Redanian border, to encourage Vizimir to take whatever he can get from you instead of trying to milk this to his benefit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It galls Geralt to let the diplomats even <em>think</em> they're pulling a fast one—and it's only going to strengthen their belief that he's some kind of beastly imbecile too stupid to realize when he's being talked down to—but...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But every day they're in the keep is another day that Jaskier needs a godsdamned <em>bodyguard</em> to move about his own home. Another day that Geralt risks running into the count again and being provoked into doing something incredibly impolitic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So if it gets them out of his keep sooner—and gets them the hell away from Jaskier—then he can deal with their condescension.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” he decides. “We'll try it your way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, even with negotiations proceeding faster, it still takes another two weeks to hammer out a preliminary draft of the treaty. By the time the envoys finally leave, the mood in the keep is just weary and glad to be rid of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are no further run-ins with the count—whether the man finally realized the danger of Geralt's disfavor, or whether the other diplomats took it upon themselves to lock him in a closet for the duration, Geralt neither knows nor cares. He sends Eskel to see them off, which is probably some kind of breach in protocol, but it's the wisest option for everyone involved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>As soon as the diplomats are gone, Yennefer informs Geralt that she is long overdue for a vacation and that she's fucking off to Cidaris for a week. She leaves him with the means to contact her, but makes it plain that unless the keep is on fire, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>he had better not.</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, she adds with a sly smile, if he wants to begin reviewing the treaty in her absence, he can always ask the bard for help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On one hand, Geralt resents being so easily read—on the other, she's handing him a perfectly respectable excuse to spend time with Jaskier, something he's sorely missed during the Redanians' visit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spots Jaskier at breakfast the following morning—a dazzling pop of color amid Kaer Morhen's habitual gloom—back in his usual place and chatting animatedly with an indulgent serving girl, clearly reveling in his newly-recovered freedom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Geralt has him summoned to his office after the meal, Jaskier turns up looking bright-eyed and freshly-scrubbed, bouncing on his heels. “Good morning, my lord,” he says warmly. “You called?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The treaty the Redanians left,” Geralt says, stepping back to let him enter and motioning to the mess of papers strewn across the desk. Eskel, already seated nearby, gives the bard a wave. “I want you to look it over for traps.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier is clearly immensely flattered by the request, and sets to reading it right away, while Geralt and Eskel wait.</span>
</p><p>There's a new self-assurance in him, Geralt thinks, watching Jaskier braced over his desk as he studies the treaty, frowning a little with concentration, his lips moving silently—a measure of confidence in the strong lines of his body that was missing before, like he's no longer afraid to take up space. Geralt finds himself hovering closer, tasting the static charge of Jaskier's awareness of him, his own scent mingling with lavender and sandalwood from the baths. 
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt manages to keep his hands to himself, but it's a near thing, and about the best he can do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“Here,” Jaskier says, startling Geralt out of his reverie. He taps one of the articles. “If you sign this, there'll be a dozen Redanian noblewomen coming to court you as soon as their horses can get here, and you’ll have to reject every possible lady in Redania before you can look elsewhere for a consort.”</span>
      </span>
    
  
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt abruptly feels as though he's been doused with ice water. “I'm not looking for a consort,” he says dumbly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But with a burst of sudden, skin-crawling unease, it occurs to him to wonder if he's going to have a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In all the long decades of his life, marriage has never once been a consideration. For his eighty years on the Path, it would have been a joke; marriage was for love, and progeny, and property—nothing to do with witchers, sterile and rootless as they were. Even his empire has been too unconventional for a political marriage to be necessary—Geralt can take his allies at their word, and doesn't need them to send him a wife as collateral. Succession isn't an issue because he already has an heir, and he's incapable of siring more. No foreign power has even expressed an <em>interest</em> in binding their country to his through marriage, until now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But with each year that goes by, as he strays further from the witcher he once was and becomes mired more deeply in his role as a leader of men, he finds himself taking on trappings he never expected to. As the Wolf becomes more civilized, the warlord's marriage becomes a powerful hand for them to play—and, he realizes with a sinking heart, all Yen would tell him if she were here would be to hold out for a more valuable prize than a third of Redania.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel and Jaskier have moved on, with Geralt contributing to the conversation only mechanically. Eskel's picked up on his dismay, even if he doesn't know the exact drift of Geralt's thoughts, and is shooting him worried glances.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>At some point you have to accept that you're not just a witcher anymore. You're an emperor—and emperors don't have the luxury of equality.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Nor the luxury of pursuing affairs of the heart without politics taking a hand in it—because if nothing else, all the world's eyes will be on the Wolf's choice of lover.</span>
</p><p>He watches Jaskier, oblivious and lovely, chattering gaily as he continues ripping the treaty to metaphorical shreds, and feels like he's watching his own heart break. Jaskier, the disowned and disfavored younger son of Redanian petty nobility, only given to Geralt in the first place because he was politically worthless. Jaskier, valuable not for <em>what</em> he is, but <em>who</em> he is. Precious—and pure self-indulgence to even consider choosing as the emperor's consort.
</p><p>
  <span>And Jaskier, who's never been anything but keenly aware of the difference in their status, would know that. He already knows that anything with Geralt would be a temporary dalliance at best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt finds himself abruptly remembering Pavetta at her betrothal feast; the glassy despair in her eyes as she stared down the suitor she loathed—the suitor she was prepared to marry anyway, because she knew the duty her empire required of her. If Nilfgaard were to come north, and Geralt's marriage were the price of peace, could he do less?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sudden surge of anger in Jaskier's scent yanks Geralt's attention back to the matter at hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“Ohhh, this clause here,” Jaskier is saying tightly, fluttering a hand to get Geralt's attention. “I think they were hoping you'd miss it because it doesn't mention her by name, but </span>
      </span>
    
  
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>heir to holdings in Caingorn, Aedirn, and northern Redania </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>means Ciri—and this would be a legally binding agreement to betroth her to Vizimir's grandson.”</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p><span><span>“</span></span><span><em><span><span>No,”</span></span></em></span> <span><span><span><span>Geralt says, hearing the word ripped from him like a growl. “My daughter is not a </span></span></span></span><span><em><span><span>fucking pawn</span></span></em></span><span><span><span><span> in their political horse-trading.”</span></span></span></span></p><p>
  <span>“<span><span>Agreed,” Jaskier says vehemently, scratching out that line with more force than strictly required.</span></span></span>
</p><p>
  <span>That seems to be the last article in the treaty—as though the course of Ciri's future were to be dictated with an afterthought—because Jaskier tosses the quill down and steps back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>“Frankly, my lord, this is garbage,” he says with a contemptuous gesture at the document. “You'd be better off writing your own treaty and shoving it down their fucking throats.”</span>
      </span>
    
  
</p><p>
  <span>“<span><span>Geralt,” he hears himself say, all unbidden.</span></span></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jaskier blinks. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<span><span>My name,” he grits out. “Not 'my lord.' You teach Ciri, you advise me, you can drop the 'my lord' bullshit.”</span></span></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn't meant to force the issue—he's learned the hard way that it never works—but the words just tumble out. More harshly than he'd intended, judging by the sharp look that Eskel shoots him, but suddenly the thought of hearing <em>my lord</em> from Jaskier even one more time feels intolerable, scraping over nerves that are already raw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt sighs, and scrubs his forehead. “It doesn't suit you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately Jaskier isn't cowed by his outburst, just surprised. He blinks at Geralt for a few seconds while he gathers his startled thoughts, then nods, a touch of pink on his cheeks. “Ah, yes, my—” he begins automatically, and then catches himself “—Geralt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt feels it twist in his chest, because <em>gods,</em> if only—his name, on Jaskier's lips, <em>mine.</em></span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>I'd be yours for the asking, </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>he thinks helplessly, and the thought hurts, but that's also when</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> Jaskier realizes how that sounded and goes immediately, adorably flustered. His blue eyes are saucer-wide, his cheeks blushing furiously as he tries to stammer past it, and Geralt can't help but smile. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hears Eskel stifle a laugh into a cough and then take pity on them. “So we're writing our own?” he prompts, a lifeline that Jaskier seizes onto gratefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They spend some more time deciding on the list of criteria for the new treaty to include, and eventually Jaskier takes himself and his notes off to his quarters to begin drafting it afresh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the door closes, Eskel turns to face him, and Geralt already knows what's coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geralt?” he prompts quietly. An invitation to share what had distressed him earlier—what's weighing on him still.</span>
</p><p><span><span><span><span>But what's Geralt going to say? That he</span></span></span></span> <span><span><span><span>only just now</span></span></span></span> <span><span><span><span>realized he's an emperor, and how that comes with certain political obligations? To which he'd have Eskel's sympathy, to be sure, but there's nothing his friend can </span></span></span></span><span><em><span><span>do.</span></span></em></span></p><p>
  <span>Geralt swallows. “I don't want to talk about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel steps forward and lays his hand on the back of Geralt's neck, brings their foreheads together and lets them rest for a moment. “He adores you,” Eskel says quietly. “Just give him time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that time might not be the problem at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's late, and Geralt is not asleep. He's in his office, rereading a missive from the King of Poviss and trying to find the words to convince the man that he's making a terrible mistake. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Because the King of Poviss, like many other monarchs whose lands are uncomfortably close to the edges of the White Wolf's empire, has decided that he doesn't want witchers patrolling his territory anymore. Geralt supposes he should be grateful that the man is at least upfront about his mistrust, rather than trying to couch it in flimsy excuses. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>We will not allow agents in the employ of a foreign power with a marked taste for conquest to continue to roam our lands unsupervised. Notice has been posted throughout the kingdom that all witchers have until the end of Birke to leave Poviss voluntarily. It is our sincere hope that they will abide by his majesty's decree and remove themselves peacefully, but if they do not, they will thereafter be met with force.</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>The words blur together in the dim candlelight, and Geralt puts the letter down again.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Vesemir had warned him about this. Way back in the beginning, before he'd even given his support to their whole mad plan, he'd approached Geralt and told him unequivocally, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>Our ability to do our job is contingent on being apolitical. We walk our Path at the sufferance of the human kings who rule these lands, and they allow us to do so only because we are not a threat to them.</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p><em><span><span><span>So what do you suggest? </span></span></span></em><span><span><span><span>Geralt demanded. </span></span></span></span><em><span><span><span>That we should let the King of Kaedwen continue to rape and murder these young women for the sake of </span></span></span><span><b><span>politics?</span></b></span></em> <span><span><span><span>He remembers being furious, all the more so because nothing seemed to break through Vesemir's unflappable calm. </span></span></span></span><em><span><span><span>I've killed so-called monsters who never took even one life, just for the threat of what they might</span></span></span><span><span><span>have become, while that man has killed </span></span></span><span><b><span>dozens</span></b></span><span><span><span> and still walks free.</span></span></span></em></p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Vesemir had just watched him rage, unfazed, his eyes on Geralt appraising. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>Hm,</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> was all he'd said before withdrawing, leaving Geralt with no idea whether that had been the right answer.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>But when the vote was held the next day, Vesemir had taken his side—and has stood by him in the decades since, without a single </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>I-told-you-so,</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> even as one nation after another politely closes their borders to the witchers who would protect them. Vesemir keeps his own counsel, even now, but Geralt hopes that his silence is tacit approval; that Vesemir believes what they're doing is worth it, despite the complications.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Complications like a king refusing to let them defend his country from the monsters he can't hope to face alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>The letter crumples in Geralt's hand. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>For fuck's sake, it's </span>
      </span>
    </span>
    <span>
      <b>
        <span>your people</span>
      </b>
    </span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> who are going to suffer for this, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>he thinks, torn between helplessness and anger. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because there's too much that lives in the mountains to allow Poviss to go unprotected—ice trolls and giants that are going to multiply out of control without witchers in the area to keep their numbers in check—and when they come spilling down from their peaks, it's going to be a slaughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it's not the first time that this dilemma has landed on Geralt's desk, and he has yet to find a solution to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inviting the local kings to send some of their own soldiers to accompany the witchers works for a while—until the witchers have to move faster than their human escorts can keep up with, or until a hunt goes wrong and the soldiers get killed, or until some combination of fear and prejudice breaks into open hostilities.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Geralt could offer to dispatch his witchers only as needed, to deal with problems as they arise—but</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> Yennefer has been </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>adamant</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> that having witchers on-call is a privilege reserved for those who bend the knee to the White Wolf and for his most trusted allies. Ungrateful lordlings who would rather let their problems get out of hand than allow witcher patrols—and who might well stage a distress call that's a trap—do not get to belatedly summon the White Wolf to clean up their messes, not for less than a king's ransom.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that Geralt has been allowed on the Path for nearly a decade. It's yet another compromise that pains him—having to send his brothers to do a job that he doesn't anymore. It feels like cowardice, like atrophy, to sit at this desk and order other men to go fight and bleed in his stead, and the argument with Yennefer about it had been a bitter one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because even ten years ago, he'd known that he couldn't stay absent for the duration of an entire patrol—but responding to a report of some alghouls in southern Kaedwen, surely the keep could spare him for a few days, right? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except that when he and Aiden staggered back into Kaer Morhen after dealing with the problem, Yennefer had been there to meet him at the gates, tight-lipped, not saying a word until they were back in the privacy of his quarters.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>You are not doing that again, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>she'd said, wheeling on him low and furious, no trace of the softness one might expect from a woman who'd been sharing his bed.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>I'm a witcher, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>he'd reminded her—unnecessarily, in his opinion.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> Killing monsters is what we do. It's what we were made for.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Then send someone else, because </span>
      </span>
    </span>
    <span>
      <b>
        <span>you </span>
      </b>
    </span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>are the only thing holding this empire together, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>she bit out. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>What do you think is going to happen to this, all of this, if you make one wrong move on a hunt and wind up with an alghoul's teeth in your throat?</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>He remembers feeling something lurch in him then, like the world he knew was shifting beneath his feet and he didn't like the new alignment it was forming. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>You could—</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Your witchers listen to me because they know I speak with your voice, but they would not follow me in the event of your death.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Eskel—</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Is not a leader, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>she said, uncompromising.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> He doesn't want your job. No one wants your job.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Not even him, it would seem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stepped forward and put her hands on his shoulders, but it wasn't a lover's touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>I don't suffer fools, and I don't serve them, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>she'd said. There was an odd note of coldness in her voice, like the gap that had been starting to grow between them in recent months was widening again. </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>You can keep pretending that you're just another witcher—right up until it kills you and your kingdom falls apart without you. But if that's what you choose, then I'm not staying around to watch it happen.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembers looking into her eyes and understanding, in that moment, that he was going to lose her, one way or another—or perhaps he already had, and just hadn't realized it yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Whatever she saw in his face made her relent a little, and she said more gently, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>Geralt, it's not just you anymore. It's everything we've fought for—the peace and security in your lands, the safety you've won for these people. If you die, all of that dies with you. </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bitter truth, one that tasted like defeat. And it might have been the first that she forced him to confront, but it wouldn't be the last.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You can't afford to risk yourself like that, not anymore. Do you understand?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And he'd closed his eyes, set his jaw, and nodded.</span>
</p><p>
He can't even say that he misses it, because he's not painting any rosy glow of nostalgia over those bloody decades he spent on the Path. He remembers full well that it was lonely and monotonous work, long stretches of tedium punctuated only with violence and pain. He has more than enough scars to remind him of what he suffered, but...
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There's a simplicity to killing monsters, is there not?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Calanthe's words to him, back when he was first setting foot on this path to empire, and he remembers the odd, canny look in her eye then—like she knew what was in store for him better than he did. He hadn't paid much attention to her words at the time, because what did a human half his age possibly have to teach him, but he realizes now that she'd already lived this firsthand. She knew what it was to watch her options narrow, as duty sunk one hook into her after another. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn't miss the Path, but he misses that simplicity, perhaps. A time when his duty was clear, when he either defeated the monster or died trying. A time when he was responsible for no one's life but his own, when he could share the same burdens as his brothers and be nothing more than one witcher among many.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Emperors don't have the luxury of equality.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Nor, apparently, of sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The three AM bell chimes softly in the distance, muted by the wind over the mountains. Geralt's mind feels hollowed-out with exhaustion, but there's no tiredness tugging at his eyelids, and he's wide awake as he stares blankly at the far wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck, he wishes Yennefer weren't in Cidaris. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tends to keep the same odd hours that he does, so even though it's been a very long time since they've fallen into bed together, she's still someone he can <em>talk to</em> in the small hours of the night when his worries spiral into sleeplessness. She has a knack for being able to ground him as few others can—because she's sensible, and not afraid to speak bluntly, and he never worries that she's putting too much faith in him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Yennefer is on the other side of the continent, and the keep is silent except for the wind whipping across the shutters outside. He can hear no one else stirring at this hour; he might as well be the only living soul on the mountain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He folds his hands on the desk, puts his head down to rest against his knuckles, and tries to focus on nothing but the sound of his own breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants... gods, he doesn't even know what he wants. He wants to put down the weight he carries, to have just a few hours of peace before he has to take it up again. Something to loosen the tension that his muscles never quite let go of anymore. It occurs to him that a long, hot soak might help with that, but this is the hour for... intimacies, in the baths, and suddenly he doesn't think he could endure being witness to that, listening to murmurs of love and lust that aren't for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Usually he can put it out of his mind. There's always work that he can throw himself into, something else to focus his attention on, and he can bury those thoughts beneath other concerns. Usually he can distract himself from just how long it's been since anyone touched him like a lover. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since Yennefer, in truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Sometimes ten years can seem to pass in the blink of an eye, but it's still ten years that he lived every day of. Ten years of nothing more than camaraderie and casual touches, the occasional helping hand from a brother or indulging with a professional while out on campaign—no shortage of companionship, but never someone to just </span>
    <em>hold </em>
    <span>him at the end of the day. Someone he doesn't have to be strong for, who can let him lean on them for a change.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he thinks, all unbidden, of Jaskier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Jaskier, who sees him for what he is, who adores the man and not the legend. He imagines Jaskier's gentle hand on the back of his neck, a touch that he can relax into, and for a moment he can't even </span>
    <em>breathe </em>
    <span>around the wanting.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You could,</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> he thinks, with desperation so acute it's almost enough to push him past propriety and embarrassment. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>You could have that, right now. You could go to him, you know he wouldn't turn you away.</em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>He could get up and walk to Jaskier's room this very moment, knock on his door. Jaskier would be soft and sleep-rumpled when he answered, surprised but not displeased, half a question on his lips as Geralt wordlessly stepped forward and drew him into his arms. He can imagine touching Jaskier like that, the feel of his body warm and solid beneath the linen of his nightshirt. Jaskier would give that breathless laugh of his, would ramble to fill the silence, words that save Geralt from having to find words of his own. He'd make a joke that would give Geralt a chance to back out, if he chose, but then his arms would come up around him anyway. And if Geralt said, </span>
    <em>just hold me, just fall asleep next to me, </em>
    <span>he wouldn't ask for explanations, he'd just say yes—</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Whether he wanted to or not.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought trickles down Geralt's spine like ice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because Jaskier is generous and kind, quick to give ease and comfort, and nursing a not-so-secret longing of his own. If Geralt presented himself at his door, tired and desperate and aching for affection, Jaskier would give it to him without hesitation, without holding back. He would give as much of himself as Geralt chose to take, even knowing that it can't last, even knowing that he doesn't get to keep Geralt in the end. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He'd let you break his heart.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Geralt whispers into the silence, and even the fantasy of acting on those desires turns sour in his gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>It's one thing to let Jaskier make that choice for himself, as Geralt still holds out hope that he might. He's hoping Jaskier will decide that the joy they could steal would be worth the pain to follow—but it's clearer now than ever before that Geralt <em>cannot take that choice out of Jaskier's hands,</em> can't even lean on it. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Because Jaskier already knows what it is to be cast aside for being </span>
    <em>not enough, never enough. </em>
    <span>He has the right to spare himself that same heartbreak again, to wait for someone who can love him properly. He deserves better than being an emperor's indulgence, waiting for the day when Geralt inevitably has to put him aside to make a political match—or worse, holds onto him out of pure selfishness, greedily consuming his love in private and not allowed to acknowledge him in public. The very thought of it makes Geralt feel sick with himself, that he could possibly ask Jaskier to break his own wings and force himself back into too small a cage, just for his sake.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Jaskier deserves someone who really can be </span>
    <em>his—</em>someone he doesn't have to share with an empire.
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Geralt </span>
    <em>wants to be that person,</em>
    <span> but he's not, and never has been. Geralt has never, ever been in a position that allowed him to put his desires above his duty, but for the first time, he finds himself wishing that he could. For the first time, he knows what he's missing.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there's nothing he can do, except put his head down and try to breathe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Life gets easier, as it always does, unless it kills you.</span>
</p><p><span><span><span><span>He continues meeting with Jaskier and Eskel in the mornings to work on the treaty, as painless a process as the negotiations with the Redanians was </span></span></span></span><span><em><span><span>not,</span></span></em></span> <span><span><span><span>since all it takes is deciding what his priorities are and then letting Jaskier put them down in precise, straightforward language. There's no guarantee that Vizimir will be willing to sign this new treaty, one that he had no input in whatsoever, but it feels like progress, at least.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>After a week or so, Eskel suggests that Jaskier be formally recognized as an adviser, which, thank fuck—because Geralt's judgment is </span></span></span></span><span><em><span><span>shot,</span></span></em></span> <span><span><span><span>and he genuinely can't tell if he's keeping Jaskier close because the man is a valuable asset, or because he wants to lick his neck.</span></span></span></span></p><p>
  <span>“<span><span>He's been your adviser in all but name for months,” Eskel points out. “And now that he's effectively sworn his oath to you, he might as well get the benefits of making it official.”</span></span></span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geralt frowns. “What benefits?” It's not like the Wolf's advisers receive anything in the way of kickbacks; he's not that kind of king.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eskel gives him a knowing smirk. “He gets to sit closer to you at supper.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm. Yes. <span><span>Alright then,” Geralt says with an unsuccessful stab at dignity.</span></span></span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Because that's another thing that's changed since the Redanians left: Jaskier's feelings are no longer a secret to </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>anyone.</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span> Previously he'd been circumspect about it, but now he wears his devotion proudly, it pours from him like sunlight every time he lays eyes on Geralt. Prior to the Redanian visit, only a handful of people had been aware of his infatuation with the Wolf—everyone in the keep knows now.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since that day in the baths, there's been no follow-up to the discussion about Jaskier taking other lovers; as far as Geralt's aware, he never acted on that freedom, and he's certainly not acting on it now. At this point, Geralt thinks that he could publicly relinquish all claim and no one would even bother to try their luck, not with Jaskier's affections already so wholly, unmistakably occupied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>He's gotten some good-natured ribbing about it when Jaskier isn't around—<em>Come on, Geralt, aren't you going to throw the lad a bone, he's dying for it</em>—and he knows for a fact that there are wagers being placed on when he's finally going to take Jaskier to bed, but... </span></span></span></span></p><p>
  <span>But Jaskier still hasn't asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at Geralt like he hung the moon and all the stars, eager to be of service and glowing at his approval, but he doesn't seek out anything more. As though being allowed to bask in Geralt's presence is all that he desires, and nothing can coax him into taking that one step further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Not even when Geralt officially makes him an adviser, settling the Wolf medallion, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>his </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>medallion, around Jaskier's neck, and feels the thrilled shiver that runs through him as he bows his head to receive Geralt's claim. When Geralt can't keep his hands from lingering on his shoulders, and Jaskier looks up at him with eyes full of fealty and open longing, and every beat of his heart seems to say, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>yours.</span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Not even when they wind up in the baths again, alongside half a dozen other witchers, and amidst the roughhousing Geralt finds some excuse to put his arms around Jaskier, and the bard's scent spikes hot and intoxicating. When the presence of the others seems to fall away, leaving just the two of them, with Jaskier warm and slippery in his arms, unconsciously pressing in closer. And then behind him, Eskel murmurs under his breath, exasperated, </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>Oh for fuck's sake, Geralt—
    </span></span></em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he makes himself let go. Because there's taking liberties and then there's... taking liberties. And Jaskier doesn't stop him, but he doesn't ask for Geralt's touch either, and he never, ever initiates.</span>
</p><p>Is there a way to say yes without words? A yes that Geralt can believe is real, and freely given? There's <em>yes</em> written in every line of Jaskier's body, but Geralt doesn't know where that yes ends, what liberties he can take before he's taken too much.</p><p>
  <span>Is there a way for Geralt to meet him halfway? To let Jaskier know that his advances would be welcome, and embolden him to take that leap? Or is the very act of making the warlord's desires known as unequivocal a command as ordering Jaskier to his knees outright?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Is there a compromise to be made—or is he just looking for an excuse to go back on his word, when he said he'd let Jaskier be the one who came to him? Trying to break the rules he set for himself, because he </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>wants, </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>and he's tired of waiting?</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But before he can find the answers to those questions, Kovir happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Gods </span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <em>
      <span>
        <span>damned </span>
      </span>
    </em>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <span>
        <span>Kovir.</span>
      </span>
    </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Geralt hasn't been to Kovir in over a decade.</p><p>The last time he visited was shortly after taking Caingorn, a brief diplomatic trip to the Koviri capital of Lan Exeter, to hammer out the borders and establish trade agreements with their new neighbors. He hadn't been impressed with the young King Alfons, who was a vain and stupid little coxcomb, but the boy was being held in check by a council of older advisers he'd inherited from his father, and things were running smoothly enough. Kovir was a decent kingdom, they signed a treaty agreeing to be decent neighbors, and Geralt had gone on his way, expecting that to be the end of it.</p><p>Except then, apparently, the idiot king sacked all the old guard advisers and replaced them with his own idiot friends, and has been running the country into the ground ever since. For the past several years, Geralt has been receiving increasingly worrisome reports from the region, but in the face of more pressing concerns, he'd been filing them under<em> problems for another day.</em></p><p>Until the idiot king took his army into Caingorn and abruptly became <em>a problem for now.</em></p><p>Yennefer hears of it first—a frantic xenovox message from Istredd, at the library of antiquities in Hengfors, with the news that the Koviri army had stormed the city, beheaded the even-tempered baron that Geralt had left in charge, and was now occupying the capital and the surrounding countryside.</p><p>The whole thing is <em>stupid, </em>is what it is, because how the <em>fuck</em> does Alfons think this is going to end for him? And it's senseless, because while Geralt may not have been particularly close to the baron, he was still a good man and a good administrator, with a wife and a child who just got slaughtered alongside him.</p><p>In any event, the White Wolf's army is going to war, and things around Kaer Morhen get very busy, very fast.</p><p>The rest of the day is a scramble of preparations, with witchers collecting and checking their gear, and making arrangements for their upcoming absence. Geralt's time is mostly taken up with Jan, planning the logistics of keeping their army fed so they're not putting a strain on Caingorn's resources, and between one thing and another, he doesn't get a chance to see Jaskier until supper.</p><p>Jaskier is... subdued that evening, his scent clouded with apprehension, and he doesn't try to make conversation with his tablemates. If not for Eskel between them, Geralt might have tried to engage him somehow, but all he can do is leave the bard to his own devices. When the meal draws to a close, Geralt stands to address his people.</p><p>The witchers already know that they're moving out at first light, but now Geralt lays out <em>why.</em> He enumerates Alfons' offenses, from his earlier excesses in his own lands to his current aggression in Caingorn; he announces that they will be liberating the citizens of Hengfors and avenging the murder of the baron and his family. His witchers are in accord.</p><p>What he doesn't say, although he and Yennefer have discussed it privately, is that this action is probably going to end with Kovir being added to the White Wolf's holdings. There's no putting Alfons back on his throne after a stunt like this; he's a liability (and an <em>asshole)</em> and as long as he and his warmongering friends are in power, no one in Caingorn is safe. A human monarch might have been willing to settle for pushing Alfons back to his own borders, reluctant to lead an invading army of their own, but Geralt has no such compunctions and no intention of letting the king escape without consequences. Alfons will die, and Geralt will be the one to decide who succeeds him.</p><p>After he's done with his announcements, Eskel and Yennefer leave to continue preparing for the campaign, and Jaskier gets up for a morale-boosting round of White Wolf songs. He seems to have noticed by now that Geralt doesn't enjoy <em>Ghelibol Burning, </em>because he omits that one, as usual, but he sings <em>The Siege of Ard Carraigh</em> and <em>The Fall of Hagge, </em>which always put the hall in high spirits, and introduces an amusing little ditty for Lambert called <em>Sir Swears-a-Lot. </em>He rounds out his set with <em>The Wolf in Caingorn, </em>which Geralt finds a little ironic, since tomorrow they're heading back for an encore.</p><p>“Does this mean I have to write <em>two </em>songs about Caingorn?” Jaskier complains when he returns to the table. The performance seems to have lifted his spirits, and he's bold enough to take Eskel's empty chair at Geralt's right, settling his lute in his lap and running through some disgruntled-sounding chords. “I just worry that it's going to sound like I'm repeating myself. People are going to think I'm running out of material. <em>Caingorn: Here We Go Again.”</em></p><p>“Mm.” Geralt doesn't choose his campaigns with an eye toward whether they'll make good songs, but he does wish the territories he's taken would stay took.</p><p>“<em>Caingorn: I Feel Like We've Been Here Before,”</em> Jaskier continues, though the cheer in his voice is starting to take on a brittle edge. <em>“Caingorn: How Many Idiot Kings Does It Take To</em><em>—”</em></p><p>“I'll be fine, Jaskier.”</p><p>Jaskier shuts his mouth with a snap, then ducks his head like he's been caught out. “Of course you will,” he mutters, chastened. He runs through a short scale that manages to sound like an apology. “You're the White Wolf. This idiot king doesn't stand a chance. If anything, I should feel sorry for <em>him.”</em></p><p>Geralt watches him, and waits.</p><p>“I just...” Jaskier trails off, biting his lip, then gives a sigh and a rueful little smile. “I just wish you didn't have to leave.”</p><p>Geralt feels his heartbeat kick up a notch. He doesn't have a response to that, even though he knows he needs to say <em>something, </em>before Jaskier takes his silence as rejection and flees, like he always does after showing too much of his hand.</p><p>But Jaskier doesn't run away this time, doesn't hasten to change the subject to something less loaded. Instead he just strums his lute absently, then tilts his head to give Geralt a very pretty, very ingenuous smile that looks remarkably like Ciri when she's trying to wheedle something out of him.</p><p>“I don't suppose you need a bard on your campaign?” he suggests hopefully.</p><p>Geralt feels his lips twitch. “Absolutely not.”</p><p>Though gods, don't tempt him. He knows that every day he's away from Jaskier and Ciri is going to be compounding the urge to just say fuck it and go home.</p><p>“But it would be <em>invaluable</em> for my art!” Jaskier insists, and he's mostly teasing now, but it's also clear that if Geralt gave the word, he'd have his bags packed in a heartbeat. “The authenticity of a first-hand account! It would be the <em>most</em> <em>accurate song I've ever written, </em>how can you deny yourself the pleasure of that?”</p><p>Geralt chuckles, and Jaskier genuinely lights up, like winning Geralt's laughter was the accomplishment of a lifetime. It makes Geralt want to keep giving, to keep being the reason for those smiles, and if Caingorn weren't guaranteed to be a shitshow, he <em>would</em> be tempted to bring Jaskier.</p><p>“Believe me, you don't want to be on the front lines,” Geralt says instead. “But... I could tell you about it, if you like. When we get back.”</p><p>Jaskier's eyes go wide and startled. “You would?”</p><p>Now Geralt feels like the one who's shown his hand. “You ask everyone else in the keep for stories,” he points out uncomfortably. A pause, then, “You could ask me, too.”</p><p>“Oh.” Jaskier is very pink, and for a moment Geralt's afraid he pushed too far, and <em>now </em>the bard's going to break and run. But then Jaskier just laughs, embarrassed but pleased. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I have been rather remiss, haven't I? Wow. I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner—to ask <em>the White Wolf</em> for stories about the White Wolf.”</p><p>“Mm,” Geralt says, but he can feel himself smiling.</p><p>And that's when he sees a door opening—when he finally sees a way across the stubborn divide that neither of them has known how to bridge. Because he wants Jaskier's companionship no less than he wants Jaskier's touch, and he's suddenly realizing that <em>he could have it.</em></p><p>He could offer those stories <em>right now</em><em>—</em>he could invite Jaskier back to his suite in the tower, invite him to chat over drinks and let the bard lead their conversation wherever he pleased. A conversation without an objective or an agenda, without an audience or a time limit—just the two of them, talking late into the night, slowly learning each other and letting the liminal intimacy of those early hours draw them into deeper confidences.</p><p>
  <em>I want to know you; I want you to know me. </em>
</p><p>And for the first time, it's <em>possible—</em>it's <em>right there,</em> it's within his reach, but...</p><p>But tonight isn't the night to venture that.</p><p>Because tomorrow he rides to war.</p><p>*</p><p>Geralt's greatest strength, in all the military operations he's undertaken over the past fifteen years, has always been just <em>how</em> unconventional an army of witchers truly is. He doesn't engage his enemies head-on; there's never a clash of forces like two great waves breaking against each other. Geralt doesn't have the numbers for that, and wouldn't care to use them that way even if he did. He doesn't have soldiers, he has <em>assassins—</em>inhumanly strong, inhumanly stealthy, who've been honing their deadly talents longer than most humans have been alive. Fifteen witchers operating with surgical precision can hamstring an army of five thousand.</p><p>Geralt's forces mobilize faster than any conventional army, they can breeze past enemy defenses to strike at the heart of their command, then disperse and give no target to hit back at—an enemy that doesn't exist, until it does.</p><p>To date, no one has managed to adapt to this new form of warfare with any degree of success, though Geralt is under no illusions that this state of affairs will last forever. Witchers are fast and strong and difficult to kill, but they're not invincible, and sooner or later, someone will find his army's weaknesses.</p><p>Sorcery, he thinks, is most likely to be their undoing. Death that creeps through the cracks in their fortress like a poisoned wind, death that boils their blood from the inside out, or sends their mutations spiraling cancerous and uncontrollable, or simply fells them where they stand.</p><p>Or sorcery that raises an army of monsters—monsters that can't be dispersed or demoralized by a blow to their leadership, that can't be persuaded to lay down arms in exchange for good terms. Monsters that just keep coming, and coming, and <em>coming,</em> clawing over each other until the mountain of their dead is piled so high that they can walk over the top of Kaer Morhen's walls, and then throw themselves onto witcher swords until Geralt's army falls under the weight of numbers and sheer exhaustion.</p><p>Or, worst of all—sorcery that grants these kings the power to make witchers of their own. It's the single most closely-guarded secret in all of Kaer Morhen, these days known only to Triss and a very select few of her colleagues—but there's no one alive who can't be compromised, with the right leverage, and it was invented once before, it could be invented again. Geralt has no doubt that there are mages across the continent working night and day to unlock the secret of creating a witcher, because that secret, sold to the highest bidder, would be worth a fortune.</p><p>And it hasn't happened yet, but it's a grim prospect—and only a matter of time.</p><p>*</p><p>The Second Caingorn Campaign (as Jaskier dubbed it) is, in a word, <em>aggravating.</em></p><p>Oh, they retake the capital fast enough—point witchers at a target, and it's as good as taken—but ousting the Koviri army from the rest of Caingorn winds up being a far more time-consuming endeavor, since it turns out that someone in Alfons' entourage actually does have a head for military strategy.</p><p>The Koviri army has taken a page out of Geralt's own book, and instead of massing into a single, sitting target, it's been split into dozens of small skirmishing groups and scattered throughout the countryside. Taking down a single detachment is no challenge—a lone witcher could probably handle it without difficulty, though Geralt splits his people into pairs to be on the safe side—but Alfons' army is spread across a massive amount of ground, looting villages as they go, and the logistics of trying to take prisoners of war and get them herded back over the mountains into Kovir is a <em>nightmare. </em>To top things off, the spring monsoon season has arrived and the rains have been beating down nonstop, turning the entire enterprise into a cold, soggy mess.</p><p>It takes less than three days to find and kill King Alfons; Geralt and a young Manticore witcher named Ajnur fight a group of skirmishers near the border, and only when it's over do they discover that the commander Geralt killed was, in fact, the king himself. But whoever split Alfons' army into separate units didn't address the issue of how to communicate effectively between them; there's no way to convince Kovir's far-flung soldiers that their king is already dead, and so the fighting continues.</p><p>Geralt and Ajnur are camped on the leeward side of the Kestrels, ground that they've been scouring on foot because the terrain is too steep and too wet for horses. They're currently packed together underneath a tent that's chilly and damp and only barely keeping the downpour off their heads.</p><p>Ajnur is a good lad, sturdy and serious, but he's only a few years past his trials—too young to remember a world without the White Wolf. It's why Geralt chose him to partner with for this, hoping that some time spent slogging through the mud together would take the edge off his hero-worship. It hasn't happened yet.</p><p>
  <em>Emperors don't have the luxury of equality.</em>
</p><p>Is this what he has to look forward to? A long life, increasingly isolated even from his own people?</p><p>Ajnur is humming to himself as he sharpens his sword<em>—The </em><em>Wolf in Caingorn, </em>no doubt reminded of it by the same quirks of geography that have had it stuck in Geralt's head for the past week too. <em>And the red hawk sails / over switch-backed trails / on the Kestrel mountains high.</em></p><p>Geralt, already lying down in his bedroll to sleep, feels a wave of homesickness grip his chest.</p><p>He's been trying not to let himself think about Kaer Morhen—about Ciri, about Jaskier, about the luxury of <em>not killing.</em> But he's tired, and his defenses are down, and he <em>wishes,</em> with an intensity that makes his teeth clench, that he could just go home. That he could wash his hands of all of this, and go back to a time when things were simple, when it wasn't his responsibility if human kings decided to conduct themselves badly.</p><p>(Except that when things were simple, he didn't have Ciri, he didn't have Jaskier. He didn't have a home at all, really.)</p><p>It's easy to imagine coming home to Ciri; he can envision her joy as she rushes up to greet him—the sweet-apple scent of her, how effervescently eager she'll be to share everything that he's missed in these intervening weeks. Sometimes it feels like every time he looks at her, too much time has passed since the last. Like she's growing too quickly, her too-brief childhood slipping away between his fingers, and he feels it all the more keenly when he's forced to be away from her.</p><p>Meanwhile, his thoughts of Jaskier are... less simple. Jaskier is still a desire he can't speak, a liberty he can't take, a bridge he can't cross. His imagination fumbles, and can produce no easy vision for that homecoming.</p><p>But, wide awake on the leeward side of the Kestrels, he closes his eyes and lets himself indulge in fantasy.</p><p>He fantasizes that Jaskier is there to greet him too, bounding eagerly into Geralt's arms, full of unhesitating delight. He imagines the pleasure of being able to linger in that embrace, of pressing his lips to Jaskier's hair and breathing him in unimpeded, all the scents that he's been catching pieces of for months, affection and desire and joy and <em>Jaskier. </em>He thinks it would feel like coming home.</p><p>He lets himself imagine another, more intimate homecoming later—of having Jaskier alone in his chambers, and the slow reveal of skin as Geralt strips him out of doublet and shirt. How beautiful he'd be in the candlelight, a feast for all the senses; how his cheeks would tinge with pink and his scent would flush hot with arousal under Geralt's gaze. How his breath would catch when Geralt goes to his knees before him and—</p><p>Ajnur clears his throat nervously. “Uhm, sir. Should I—go patrol for a bit?”</p><p>Geralt shoves those thoughts out of his head and rolls over. “Go to sleep.”</p><p>*</p><p>After fourteen days he splits his forces, leaving half in Caingorn to continue hunting down Alfons' soldiers, and taking the other half to Lan Exeter. That part, at least, goes smoothly—word of the king's death has already reached the city, and they've been awaiting the Wolf's next move in an agony of anticipation ever since. The gates open at his army's approach, and he's met with a small entourage headed by an old man who introduces himself as Piotr, one of the previous king's councilors. The man quakes at Geralt's approach, but manages to keep his feet planted and his chin held high, and the first question he asks is what concessions they can make to keep the Wolf from burning their city to the ground.</p><p>Geralt winds up spending three days dealing with the royal bureaucracy in Lan Exeter, sorting out the leadership void left by the king's death.</p><p>Alfons has a younger sister, Doloreta, who is gracious and conciliatory and cut from the exact same cloth as her idiot brother—was even married to one of his late lieutenants—so Geralt isn't fooled into handing her control of Kovir. He reinstates the old king's council, with Piotr at its head, and has Yen deliver Doloreta into a genteel exile with some distant relatives in Temeria. He knows full well that she's trouble in the offing, but he can't justify killing her for crimes she hasn't committed yet.</p><p>More problems for later, it would seem.</p><p>And as much as he'd like to go home now, the rest of Alfons' army is still raiding villages in Caingorn, so the witchers wearily mount up their horses and head back over the border.</p><p>The rain lets up about the time they stop to make camp that evening, halfway across the mountain pass, and despite the damp and the general exhaustion, the mood is relaxed and cheerful, almost festive. It's rare to have so many witchers in one place outside of Kaer Morhen, and since there's no need for vigilance or stealth tonight, the ravine is dotted with campfires, lively with the sound of drink and laughter. Tomorrow they'll be reentering contested Caingorn and splitting up to continue the hunt, but tonight they can take a moment to breathe.</p><p>The witchers have divided themselves roughly by school, even in the absence of formal seating, so Ajnur has rejoined the Manticores while Geralt falls in with the Wolves by default. There's no one here he's particularly close to though; Eskel and Lambert are still on the Caingorn front, Yennefer is in Temeria, and the Wolf witchers who accompanied him to Lan Exeter are... younger. It's not quite the same divide as with Ajnur—most of them are men he'd had a nodding acquaintance with for decades before all this warlord business happened—but he can still feel himself as something apart from them. So instead of lingering with the Wolves after supper, he gets up to make a circuit of the camp.</p><p>The Griffin campfire keeps intermittently bursting into song, which might be what draws him to it<em>—The Wolf in Caingorn,</em> of course, and the leading voice has Jaskier's enthusiasm, if not his skill.</p><p>“—<em>'neath the night-black sky, rode Mikolaj / of the noble Griffin school—</em>White Wolf!”</p><p>At Geralt's approach, the singer breaks off with a cheerful salute, promptly echoed by a chorus of other voices, and beckons him over.</p><p>Geralt gives them a nod, both acknowledgment and permission to be at ease, and takes a seat where the Griffins have shifted to make space for him.</p><p>“So, Wolf, did you hear that our Mikolaj is <em>famous?” </em>the singer—Jacek—asks, near to bursting with glee.</p><p>Mikolaj, seated next to him and <em>reeking</em> of chagrin, gives Jacek a shove that would have toppled a lesser man.</p><p>Geralt doesn't think they're talking about Mikolaj's cameo in <em>Wolf in Caingorn, </em>since that's old news, and finds his curiosity piqued. He raises an eyebrow in question.</p><p>“Alright, so there we were,” Jacek begins with relish, “just south of Malleore. We'd finally caught up with this regiment we'd been tracking for a day and a half, only to find the <em>sorriest</em> bunch of soldiers you ever fuckin' saw—peasant conscripts, the lot of 'em, would have taken them three tries to find the pointy end of a sword. Shoulda just left 'em in Kovir. Well, except for the asshole in charge, who thinks he's the cock of the walk because he's got a bunch of farmers to boss around.</p><p>“Anyway, we're debating whether we should wait for nightfall to attack—easier to make 'em surrender when they think there's thirty more of us hiding in the bushes, y'know?—but they're on the move, and we can smell a village just over the next hill, and alright, I guess we're doing this now.</p><p>“So I circle round to the front, plant myself in the middle of the road and draw my sword, and do the whole <em>You-will-go-no-further</em> thing. The farmers are about to <em>shit</em> themselves, but they're pulling their weapons too, because they've got the asshole there ready to lop their heads off if they try to run—which is when Mikolaj, neat as you please, hops up on the asshole's horse right behind him and puts a knife to his neck.</p><p>“And now the farmers would <em>really </em>like to get the hell out of there, but they've got witchers at both ends and they don't want to turn their backs on either of us. And then Miko, in a <em>majestic voice</em> ringing with noble—urgh!” He fends off Mikolaj, who's trying to clap a hand over his mouth, and struggles to tell the story through his laughter, <em>“—noble integrity,</em> announces, 'I am Mikolaj of the Griffins, and on behalf of the White Wolf, I give you my word that any man who swears to lay down his arms and return home without bloodshed will be granted safe passage across these lands.'”</p><p>There are only two ways a story like this ever ends, but Geralt is taking Jacek's mirth as a hopeful sign.</p><p>“There's a <em>looong </em>pause. Hardly anyone's even breathing. And then this one guy, who's staring bug-eyed at Miko like he's looking at Melitele herself come to earth, goes, <em><b>The</b></em><em> Mikolaj? </em><em><b>SIR</b></em><em> Mikolaj??”</em></p><p>Mikolaj buries his face in his hands and looks like he wants to die of mortification.</p><p>“And Miko, like a <em>dumbfuck,</em> goes, 'Err, I'm... <em>a </em>Mikolaj?' And then they started <em>singing at us!”</em> Jacek cracks up laughing. <em>“—And in the moonlit glade, / There Mikolaj stands with sword in hand / between the monster and the maid.”</em></p><p>Geralt remembers that from the first Caingorn campaign. The prince of the region, too proud and mistrustful to hire a witcher to rid him of the wyverns in the mountains, had turned a blind eye when they began preying on villagers in the foothills—better that they eat peasants than the royal deer, after all.</p><p>That was when Geralt had stopped waiting for an invitation. He took the Wolves to Hengfors to oust the prince, and dispatched Coën and a dozen Griffins to clear out the wyverns. It was a quick, relatively tidy conquest that the rural populace had greeted with cautious optimism, and had furnished Jaskier with any number of heroic anecdotes for his song—including Mikolaj's timely rescue of a young peasant woman.</p><p>“That was when their asshole commander started hollering and trying to get away, and I had to hit him over the head,” Mikolaj says mournfully.</p><p>“And then you had to hit him again, 'cause you always pull your punches too much.”</p><p>“I think I hit him too hard the second time.”</p><p>“—which absolutely <em>no one</em> gave a fuck about,” Jacek puts in viciously, “because apparently this asshole had been threatening to burn the farms of any families that couldn't contribute a man of fighting age to the war effort.”</p><p>“Yeah, I don't feel too bad about it,” Mikolaj admits. “And the rest of them were happy to go straight back to Kovir! So it all worked out, the end.”</p><p>Jacek breaks into a wolfish grin. “Oh, Miko, you wouldn't want to leave out the best part—”</p><p>“I swear to <em>every god,</em> if you don't shut your mouth, they are <em>never going to find your body—”</em></p><p>“So we've given them a writ of safe passage—<em>ow!”</em> Jacek says, grappling with Mikolaj to keep him at arm's length, “and checked that they've got supplies enough to see them home. And we're just about to be on our way, when the man who recognized Miko first, who is still <em>overcome </em>at being in the presence of greatness, throws himself to the ground at Miko's feet and goes, <em>My lord, I beseech you, grant me your blessing!</em></p><p>“And Miko's like, 'Err, okay?' and gives the man a really awkward pat on the head and goes, 'Uhm. May your... travels bring you safely home?' And then suddenly <em>all of them </em>want to get blessed—I mean, they'll take whatever luck they can get, right?—so the next thing you know, the entire godsdamned regiment is lining up for their turn to have <em>Saint Mikolaj of the Griffins</em> lay hands on them.” He cackles. “Fifty crowns says you're going to find shrines to Miko next time you're in Kovir.”</p><p>“He was just grateful that we were letting them go home,” Mikolaj mutters, red-faced.</p><p>“Oh, he was starry-eyed, absolutely smitten with you. He'll never know love like that again. He was ready to offer you his daughter's hand in marriage. Hell, he was ready to marry you himself, even though I was <em>trying </em>to tell him that Miko has shit-all for a dowry—”</p><p>“Will you shut the <em>fuck</em> up—”</p><p>“—but we could give him a goat if he'd take you off our hands!”</p><p>At that point, Mikolaj tackles him and the two of them go tumbling backwards from the fire in a tussle of limbs. A few moments later Jacek resurfaces, bright-eyed and grinning at Geralt despite the leaves in his hair. “Tell your bard to write a song about me next time, hey? I'd make a way better cult leader than Miko.”</p><p>“Tell him yourself,” Geralt says, amused. There's a curl of pleasure at the words <em>your bard, </em>at hearing other people call Jaskier <em>his, </em>even if it's not exactly true. “He'll be pleased to hear that his songs have traveled so far.”</p><p>“Those songs have done us a service,” Coën puts in unexpectedly, his voice a quiet rumble from across the fire. “I don't have any stories that are quite as... amusing as Miko's, but thrice now my name has been recognized, and each time it's helped persuade the commonfolk that my word can be trusted.”</p><p>“Harder to see us as monsters when they've got a tune to put to our names,” another Griffin muses.</p><p>And this was the whole reason they'd gotten a bard, after all—to temper the Wolf's bloodthirsty reputation, so that people wouldn't be afraid to surrender, wouldn't feel like they had to fight to the last man—but it still comes as a shock to Geralt to realize that it's <em>working.</em> What could have turned into a massacre was averted, thanks to Jaskier's songs smoothing the way for them; the luckless Koviri conscripts are on their way home, and the two Griffins have a funny story to tell instead of more pointless deaths weighing on their consciences.</p><p>He's also realizing that Jaskier was onto something when he chose to showcase other witchers in his songs too—a polite gesture, Geralt had thought, and the men appreciated having their efforts recognized, but he hadn't seen any real point to it.</p><p>Now (with some chagrin at his own self-absorption) he can acknowledge that it was <em>exactly </em>what they needed—because by giving the witchers names and stories, Jaskier has managed to humanize them to the common people in a way they never were before. They're not a faceless army of monsters anymore, they're individuals, <em>heroes,</em> whose deeds are known and sung.</p><p>It's an unfamiliar feeling, being able to celebrate a success that came entirely without bloodshed. All too often, even victory leaves a bitter taste in Geralt's mouth, when the cost is paid with someone else's coin and he can't help wondering if he could have handled it better somehow, could have saved more lives.</p><p>But this time... this time they've done well, with nothing to regret at all. Across the fire, Jacek is singing <em>The Wolf in Caingorn </em>again, and Mikolaj, beneath his embarrassment, is pleased and <em>proud </em>of himself.</p><p>As he should be, Geralt thinks. Would that every victory came so clean.</p><p>*</p><p>Two days later, the memory of laughing around a campfire feels like an artifact from someone else's life.</p><p>The regiment's commander lays sprawled in the mud—breathing, though Geralt can't guarantee more than that—but instead of taking the opportunity to surrender, the Koviri soldiers are leveling their pikes and spreading out into a loose semicircle around Geralt and Ajnur, their faces fixed with grim resolve.</p><p>“Lay down your weapons,” Geralt orders, raising his voice to be heard over the muffling patter of the rain, “and you'll be allowed to return home in peace.”</p><p>It's an ugly place for a fight—the middle of a forest slope, sodden leaves sliding treacherously underfoot, while haphazard splashes of rain pelt down through the canopy above. Geralt is soaked through, his hair plastered to his head, with water dripping into his eyes and trickling through the crevices of his armor like cold fingers.</p><p>“Says the beast who burned Ghelibol!” one soldier shouts back. He tries to spit in Geralt's direction, but it gets lost in the muck. “We've come to free the people of Caingorn from your foul tyranny—a human lord for human lands!”</p><p>It has the ring of a rallying cry, oft-repeated, and the other soldiers shout their agreement in near unison.</p><p>“Your king is <em>dead,”</em> Geralt snaps, teeth gritted. “His conquest failed, it's <em>over.</em> Put down your fucking weapons.”</p><p>But Geralt's never had Jaskier's gift of persuasion, and he isn't Mikolaj, rescuer of maidens. He can feel it as his words only harden their resolve.</p><p>“You'll not take Kovir too, not while I live and breathe!” the man declares.</p><p><em>I already have, </em>he thinks wearily. But that's not an argument that would help his case, if they even believed him.</p><p>Because he's the White Wolf—when they look at him, it's not Jaskier's songs they're hearing, but something older and far bloodier. He's the adversary; the monster lurking at the dark heart of every horror story these men have been told all their lives. To stand against the Wolf holds both a moral imperative, and the promise of glory beyond reckoning for the one who can take his head. There's nothing Geralt could say that they'd believe, not from him, nothing that would convince them to abandon this fight.</p><p>Geralt doesn't want human blood on his blade today.</p><p>He falls back a step from the soldiers trying to flank them, and at his side, Ajnur mirrors the motion. Geralt can feel the younger man's tightly-leashed anxiety, feels the training that keeps him steady nonetheless. Ajnur's hand is gripping his sword-hilt but he doesn't draw it, not yet, still following Geralt's lead.</p><p>The soldiers think his hesitation is fear, and it fans their misplaced confidence, brings bravado-tinged smiles to a few faces. They see thirty soldiers against two witchers, and have no idea how unequal those odds truly are.</p><p>The lead soldier takes a step closer, and Geralt takes another step back.</p><p><em>Everything in him</em> is rebelling against what he's about to do. All the lessons of his inhumanly-long life are screaming in his ears that this is <em>wrong—</em>that you<em> do not, must not, <b>cannot</b> raise your sword against humans, </em>no matter the provocation. That a witcher's purpose is to protect, and their watchword is sacrifice; to kill a human is to become the monster that needs hunting.</p><p>Sometimes he can force it down beneath the mantra of <em>necessity, justice,</em> when he's putting down some horror in human skin—taking one life to save many, a life already far past redemption—but there's no easy calculus that can assuage his conscience here. It's a fight he could have walked away from, in another life, before he had the people of Caingorn looking to him for protection. No one would have had to die, least of all these men who aren't monsters, aren't past redemption, but are simply too young—<em>painfully young, some of them no older than Jaskier—</em>to understand that they've been lied to. They aren't Caingorn's liberators; they're a thoughtless sacrifice on the altar of Alfons' greed and hubris, and they could have come to realize that, if only they'd been given more time.</p><p>“Sir?” Ajnur whispers.</p><p>Geralt's hand pulls a potion vial from his belt. He flicks the cork off with the ease of long practice and swallows it down without taking his eyes off the advancing soldiers.</p><p>“Do what you have to,” he says, voice distorting as the potion immediately begins to take effect.</p><p>Then the first soldier raises his spear, and all that follows is violence.</p><p>*</p><p>In the end, the campaign <em>is </em>decided by a proper battle, of sorts. It's the kind of battle that Geralt usually manages to avoid getting drawn into, but he finds out with very little time to spare that one of Alfons' surviving lieutenants has scraped together the tattered remnants of the Koviri army and is rallying for a final stand against the White Wolf. Seven-hundred strong, according to the breathless scout who delivers the news, and bearing down fast on the unwalled merchant town of Creigiau.</p><p>Rarely has Geralt been so glad for his army's speed, and even so, they only barely make it in time. Geralt and some thirty-odd witchers stumble out of a portal into Creigiau's town square, blinking in the watery high-noon sunlight, to find the Koviri army already in view, marching down the plain like an oncoming storm. There's no time to plan for anything other than a frontal assault, and no chance of a bloodless surrender; the soldiers facing them now are the ones who have steadfastly refused to desert or lay down arms, even as the Koviri offensive crumbled, and the officer in their midst rides with a sorceress at his side.</p><p>(“Emiliana of Brugge,” Yennefer reports with a sneer. “She's... unimaginative.”)</p><p>But unimaginative or not, magic-wielders are always a dangerous variable. Magic paired with fanaticism leaves Geralt with little margin for mercy—because every minute he allows the battle to drag on is a minute spent gambling with the lives of his brothers in the hopes of reducing enemy casualties. That math still feels alien to him—putting the lives of witchers above humans, any humans—and it's only with difficulty that he can rework the facts into a new shape, to think of it as <em>our forces versus the enemy's forces, </em>and make the call that needs to be made.</p><p><em>One in ten, </em>he gives the order as they array themselves between Creigiau and the approaching army. Half the witchers are with him to intercept the Koviri charge; the rest have been spread out to defend the town against any troops that break off from the main body. <em>Kill one soldier in ten. Pace yourselves, let each death be felt before moving on to the next. Keep going until their lines break.</em></p><p>They'll be clean deaths, he tells himself. None of the indiscriminate violence that leaves even the survivors maimed and crippled for life.</p><p>It's still the premeditated decision to take human lives.</p><p>Behind them, Yennefer and Istredd are preparing the spellwork they'll need for the battle. Istredd brings up a protective barrier, while Yennefer begins a low chant in Elder speech; the witchers mill about restlessly, waiting for the spell she's weaving to settle over them.</p><p>The Koviri army is close enough now that Geralt can feel the earth vibrating at their approach, a tremor that runs up through the soles of his boots. He takes a bottle from his belt—focus, is what he'll need for this fight—then tosses back the contents and breathes deep while he waits.</p><p>Yennefer's spell descends with a tingle that feels like spiderwebs landing on his skin; it makes his face itch, and he hears someone behind him sneeze. The illusion takes effect almost immediately, the edges of his vision starting to blur as the crowd of witchers dissolves into formless wisps of smoke and shadow, an impossibly elusive enemy. He can feel the potion working its magic on him too—burning away his misgivings and leaving only a cold, shining clarity of purpose.</p><p>“<em>Now,”</em> he growls, and his witchers surge forward.</p><p>The potion does odd things to his perception of time, and the spell does odd things to his perception of space; he experiences the battle like a series of clipped images, as if he's stepping in and out of reality from one moment to the next.</p><p>He sets his sights on a target, closes in. The Koviri soldier seems to move as slowly as if he's underwater, barely even has time to draw breath in surprise before Geralt's sword is plunging into his throat. A twist and a jerk of his wrist brings the sword free, followed by a spray of arterial blood. Then Geralt's falling back again, his flat, blackened gaze sliding down the line as he counts off to his next target.</p><p>It's a struggle to deliberately slow himself down, to give the man's fellows time to register his death, to see him fall. Difficult to remember that their goal is to rout, not to slaughter, when the intense focus of the potion sees only a map of weaknesses to strike at.</p><p>His senses are simultaneously heightened and compartmentalized—he's conscious of the smell of blood, of bowels loosened in death, the sparking terror and confusion amid the Koviri ranks, the choked-off cries that erupt when a soldier falls—but each is filed away with clinical dispassion inside a mind that feels like silence and stillness.</p><p>Geralt comes to the next soldier, and dispatches him with the same mechanical precision as the first. He feels neither guilt nor satisfaction; there's no room for either within the unnatural, single-minded focus of the potion, only the relentless drive to keep going until the job is done. The adjacent soldier sucks in a gasp, heart hammering, terror flooding the air as he realizes that death is standing right next to him.</p><p>“<em>Run,” </em>Geralt growls, sketching axii in the air. Like kicking the scree that starts the landslide.</p><p>Step back, <em><b>slow down,</b></em> count ten more. Eyes locking onto that defenseless inch of throat above the gorget, sinking his blade home. He glimpses a fringe of brown hair, blue eyes that widen in surprise at a death they hadn't seen coming. Step back, count ten down the line, close on the next target.</p><p>Time has no meaning in the dream-like state wrought by potion and illusion. Geralt hardly registers its passage, until he counts off ten and realizes that the soldier in front of him is already turning away to flee, pike falling from nerveless fingers, his expression a mask of fear in that weightless, time-stopped moment before action.</p><p>Geralt manages to stay his hand; his sword is frozen midair, in a backhand grip like a snake poised to strike. Everything feels unnaturally slow as he watches the soldier stumble away. His predator's eyes track the man's ungainly steps through the churned mud beneath his feet, and he has to lock the muscles in his legs to keep from giving chase, spurred by the instinct that sees fleeing prey and tastes blood.</p><p>Because it's over.</p><p>All around him, the Koviri ranks are breaking for good, weapons being discarded as the soldiers bolt for the dubious protection of the treeline. Men brush past Geralt as if he were a ghost in their midst.</p><p>He lets his arms fall to his sides; his chest is heaving and his mind is blank as he watches the fleeing soldiers. For a moment, the sudden absence of purpose yawns like a void inside of him and he struggles to grasp at the elusive threads of rationality, of <em>self.</em></p><p>It's over. The battle is over, and with it, the war. All that's left to show for Alfons' attempted conquest are the scores of Koviri dead scattered before him, warm and sticky beneath the spring sun, sinking into the muddy fields of Lower Malleore.</p><p>There's a tingle that feels like a veil lifting—Yen's spell dissolving, no longer needed—and Geralt feels himself blink as the world comes abruptly back into focus. He shakes off the paralysis in his limbs, the fuzziness in his thoughts, and turns back toward the town.</p><p>The potion is still working in him and he feels like a rider in his own body, detached and dispassionate while he watches himself deal with the aftermath.</p><p>He assigns men to deal with the battlefield carnage. To heal the wounded (if there are any) and haul away the dead. Get names for them, if possible; Geralt can't give those families their sons and husbands back, but he can give them closure, at least.</p><p>(And then burn this battlefield to ash, before it can rise again.)</p><p>He dispatches patrols to round up the fleeing survivors, before they can take out their anger and desperation on the villagers of the area. He needs to find a way to secure them for the march back to Kovir, and he loathes the idea of chaining men together like pack animals (a humiliation he wouldn't choose to inflict on anyone), but for those who refused to surrender, there is no better option.</p><p>(Yet another reason for them to hate the White Wolf.)</p><p>He sends the mages off to track down the witcher pairs still scattered across Caingorn and bring them to Creigiau for the trip home. Portaling to Kaer Morhen is draining and intensive, so they need to be grouped and ready before Yennefer opens it.</p><p>He talks to Creigiau's mayor; can smell the fear that the man is valiantly trying to suppress as he discusses practicalities with the black-eyed monster standing in his town square. Geralt informs him that the threat is over, and that the bulk of the White Wolf's army will be departing shortly. Coën and some of the Griffins have volunteered to stay behind to handle the clean-up—news that the mayor receives with visible relief.</p><p>(The Griffins are popular in these parts, but the Wolf is still an unsettling unknown.)</p><p>Yen finds him some time later; he can't remember what he'd been in the middle of. She's dressed as if for court, as always, but her eyes are tired and her body is pricked with sour sweat from her exertions. They're ready, she says, and so without fanfare, he gives the order and watches his army line up in rows for their departure.</p><p>He and Yennefer and Eskel are the last to go through the portal, and it closes behind them with a snap that blows one final rush of warm, humid air across his skin.</p><p>He's momentarily disoriented—he feels like he's gone colorblind, the world suddenly muted to shades of gray beneath the lowering mountain sky. The air in his mouth is thin and cold and dry, tasting of rock and pine instead of springtime and blood.</p><p>The courtyard of Kaer Morhen, as unchanged as if he never left. As if the past weeks of carnage were just a dream.</p><p>There's a shout, a flash of movement in the corner of his eye, and he only barely manages to stay the hand reaching for his dagger before Ciri is there, tackling him around the waist with a full-body hug.</p><p>Ciri. Kaer Morhen. <em>Home,</em> he reminds himself, clumsily patting the back of her head. He'd make his muscles release their deadly, hair-trigger tension if he could, but it's not something he knows how to command; no one ever taught him how to <em>stop </em>being a weapon.</p><p>The potion has burnt itself out by now, it must have, but the glassy sense of unreality lingers. His actions feel stiff and stilted even as he goes down on one knee and lets Ciri embrace him tightly, puts his arms around her and lets her bury her face against his shoulder. She smells of sweet apples and sunlight, a scent he registers distantly, like dredging up a long-buried memory. He can hear her heartbeat, can feel the warmth coming off her; she feels like a bird cupped in his hands, the life thrumming in her so desperately fragile.</p><p>Then, as if following a thread, he lifts his gaze over her shoulder to find Jaskier watching him too. He's in blue, like a piece of the sky cut from a different painting and pasted into Kaer Morhen's gloom. Jaskier gives him a smile when their eyes meet, but keeps his distance.</p><p>Geralt can remember having fantasized about a warmer welcome, but that memory is now as flat and colorless as an illustrated plate in an old book. He doesn't even find himself wanting it anymore, because there's no point, really—he'd be as unresponsive in Jaskier's embrace as he is in Ciri's.</p><p>Then Jaskier is stepping away to assist Yennefer, and a moment later the crowd moves between them and Geralt loses sight of him altogether.</p><p>He becomes aware of Eskel at his side, calm and steady. Eskel, gently untangling Ciri and encouraging her to climb into his arms instead, then touching Geralt's shoulder and nudging him to rise. He lets himself be ushered into the keep, doesn't question where Eskel's taking him, isn't even paying attention until they're in the carved stone stairwell that leads down to the baths.</p><p>In the bathing hall, Eskel puts Ciri down and tells her to go on ahead, that they'll be along shortly, then draws Geralt behind a screen and sets to work removing his armor. Geralt holds himself still and lets him do it.</p><p>Eskel hadn't been in the battle at Creigiau, he was still in Hengfors for that, so he doesn't smell like blood, or bitter potions—just his own familiar self amidst the warm mineral scent of the baths. The only thing in this room that smells like war is Geralt.</p><p>“Am I—” he begins, but finds speech getting caught in his throat like a bur. He swallows, then makes a vague gesture over his face.</p><p>“Back to normal,” Eskel assures him.</p><p>He doesn't feel back to normal.</p><p>Eskel stops when Geralt's down to his shirt and breeches, gathering up the armor to be taken away for cleaning, and gives him a pat on the shoulder. “Go join Ciri in the bath,” he says, his voice gentle. “I'll be back shortly.”</p><p>Bath. Ciri. He can manage that. He nods, and Eskel goes.</p><p>Ciri's already splashing around in the pool when he finds her, though she immediately latches onto his side as he sinks into the water. Her chatter is a familiar comfort and he lets it wash over him, although he can't manage much in the way of reply. He knows she can tell, on some level, that there's still something wrong with him; he can feel the edge of anxiety in her, the need for tactile reassurance as she pats her hands over his arms and shoulders, an unconscious imitation of how the witchers check each other for injuries after sparring.</p><p>“You didn't get hurt, did you?” she asks, clinging to his arm anxiously.</p><p>He shakes his head, and rubs a clumsy hand against her hair.</p><p>“No, cub.” His voice feels rough and unused. He wets his lips. “I was too fast for anyone to hurt. I'm just tired, that's all.”</p><p>“Triss said you'd be tired when you got back.”</p><p>“Triss is a wise woman,” he murmurs. He's aware of Vesemir joining them in the pool, lowering himself onto the opposite ledge.</p><p>Vesemir hums his agreement. “And we're lucky to have her. An army relies on its support no less than its soldiers,” he tells her seriously. “Men who are injured and hungry and unarmed will win no battles. As a commander, your job is both to protect your own supply lines, and to target the enemy's.”</p><p>His voice has taken on the didactic tone that puts Geralt in mind of his own youth. Strange, how unchanged Vesemir is, even after a century; more constant than Kaer Morhen itself.</p><p>That piques Ciri's curiosity, since her future as a military tactician isn't something they've started to train her in yet, and she eagerly presses Vesemir for more. She's asking intelligent questions for a child her age, one unfamiliar with warfare but quick to grasp the challenges that Vesemir sets to her. Geralt leans back and closes his eyes, wills himself to relax into the sound of their conversation flowing around him, to breathe deep and steady.</p><p>He's in a half-doze when he's roused by the sound of new voices, and opens one eye to see Eskel entering with Jaskier slung under his arm. The bard lights up when his eyes land on Geralt, surprise and pleasure in his scent; behind his back, Eskel looks smug and silently mouths, <em>You're welcome. </em>Then to Ciri he says, “C'mere, cub, come tell me what mischief you've been up to, and let your Papa rest his eyes for a spell.”</p><p>Geralt closes his eyes and goes back to concentrating on his breathing, trying to find the eye of the storm that will let his mind settle even amid the turbulence still buzzing in his blood. He's aware of Ciri detaching herself from him to go join Eskel; the other witcher must have brought the ball for her seal game, because he hears it splash, followed by Ciri's laughter and her ungainly paddling as she goes chasing after it.</p><p>And then—Jaskier is there, sliding into the water at Geralt's side, taking the place that Ciri had vacated. Geralt's eyes are still closed, but he can feel the water rippling off Jaskier's body and brushing against his; he can taste the bard's excitement at their proximity, at his own boldness.</p><p>The feeling of him is... unlike anything Geralt's ever dealt with in this state before, and his heightened, over-tuned senses have no idea what to make of it. The meditative state from before has been scattered; Jaskier's presence is a sparking, fizzing point on the edge of his awareness, like a ball of lightning that he can't tear his attention from.</p><p>He's aware that Jaskier's talking to him; aware of himself responding with the same detachment that carried him through the aftermath of Creigiau, but his focus is caught on the unspoken currents in the air rather than the words themselves. He can feel the singular intensity of Jaskier's attention on him like a physical pull; his anticipation, not the fear-adjacent precursor to battle, but a different kind of arousal, one that's utterly alien to Geralt's war-tuned senses.</p><p>Jaskier's asking about the campaign now, getting confirmation that Kovir is indeed the newest vassal state in the White Wolf's empire.</p><p>(At least there won't be any trouble justifying this conquest, Geralt thinks absently. Alfons may not have been an out-and-out monster, but kings understand that when you invade a neighboring country, you either win, or you reap what you sow.)</p><p>He hears Eskel toss the ball again, followed by Ciri's giggle as she takes off after it with a splash. It's singularly graceless, since she's never swum in anything larger than the bathing pools, but she can keep herself afloat, at least.</p><p>He's aware of Jaskier edging closer, the water eddying between them and bringing his scent closer. Jaskier's breath catches in a quiet hitch, and then his knuckle nudges against Geralt's bare shoulder.</p><p>Geralt's heartbeat stutters in his chest.</p><p>His eyes are still closed, but all at once he's wide awake, all drowsiness fled. The touch goes through him like a grounding shock, and he's suddenly back inside himself, <em>present </em>in a way he wasn't before. He's conscious of the sensations of his body, of his surroundings, of Jaskier's proximity—the steam of the bath is heavy in his lungs, and the conversation around them is clear and crisp in his ears.</p><p>And as he stutters through the sudden onrush of sensation, it occurs to him that this is the first time that <em>Jaskier</em> has been the one to reach out and touch <em>him. </em>Jaskier, who has never before been anything but a passive (albeit eager) recipient of the liberties Geralt's taken, is finally making a move of his own.</p><p>And judging from Jaskier's scent, he's aware of that too. Even as small as that touch was, it's a conscious step into uncharted territory, nothing casual or accidental about it. He smells like lust, like hope, mingled with a breathless sort of daring.</p><p>“Come on,” Jaskier coaxes. There's laughter in his voice, something intimate, and it feels like a secret between them. “You can be more eloquent than that.”</p><p>It takes Geralt a moment to recall the conversation they'd been having—the bard unsuccessfully trying to pump him for details about the campaign. And he knows that he promised Jaskier that much, is aware that he'd want to give it to him if he could, but his memories of Caingorn feel out of reach, detached from his present self like islands without a bridge between them.</p><p>Geralt can hear the water as it laps against Jaskier's bare skin; he hears the surface of the water break as Jaskier lifts a hand to poke him again, but this time his hand snaps up on instinct, capturing Jaskier's wrist and pulling him in tightly. He opens his eyes to Jaskier's face.</p><p>“Caught you,” Geralt hears himself say, his voice rough.</p><p>He is <em>utterly</em> unprepared for the answering surge of arousal from Jaskier. The bard freezes with it, pupils going wide and his breath catching in his throat. There's not a trace of fear in him at Geralt's iron grip around his wrist, just unthinking trust and the scent of his desire <em>exploding </em>between them. Even muffled by the water, it stuns Geralt dumb; he can feel himself responding to it out of unthinking instinct, not with arousal of his own, but with a powerful fascination that has him bending his head to better breathe in the air at the curve of Jaskier's neck.</p><p>Jaskier gives a breathless little laugh, wets his lips. “How do you do that without looking?” he asks, curling his fingers to brush lightly across Geralt's thumb—</p><p>“Poor sort of witcher he'd be, to need eyes when you're splashing about like that,” Eskel puts in. His voice is mild, but pointed, and it abruptly punctures the bubble around them.</p><p>Geralt blinks, suddenly aware again of the other people in the room—of Vesemir giving him a mildly chastising look, of Ciri paddling around less than six feet away—aware that he has Jaskier all but trapped against the edge of the pool. His thoughts still feel muddled, cause and effect disconnected from each other, and it takes a moment for him to sit back and give Jaskier space to breathe again.</p><p>Ciri takes that as her cue to demonstrate that she can splash too, and paddles over to them, a welcome distraction. Jaskier's wrist is still lax in Geralt's hold, resting against his thigh below the surface of the water, and Geralt can't resist privately rubbing his thumb over the bard's strong, delicate tendons.</p><p>After a while she returns to her game with Eskel, and Jaskier promptly scoots closer and picks up their earlier discussion again.</p><p>“You could just tell me the story properly,” he suggests. He gives Geralt a playful smile and nudges him with his shoulder, his foot brushing against Geralt's ankle underwater.</p><p>Geralt has a flash of—sense-memory, sudden and visceral, remembering the feel of his hand acting of its own accord as it plunged his blade forward, and watching those eyes go wide with shock. Like a memory that he'd forgotten until this moment, and all at once he finds himself starkly, sickeningly aware of the contrast—the ease and safety of Kaer Morhen, and Jaskier's innocent curiosity, all of it worlds away from the brutal reality of the campaign. That scarcely an hour ago, Geralt was wiping human blood off his sword, the blood of soldiers younger than Jaskier, whose only sin was believing the lies they'd been told.</p><p>Lies that Jaskier had once believed too—Geralt remembers the bard's terror when he first arrived at Kaer Morhen, the brutality he'd been expecting. If Jaskier's talent had been for combat rather than song, he would have stepped forward without hesitation to defend his country from the Wolf, would have believed that it was a cause worth laying down his life for. And then Jaskier might have been the blue-eyed soldier dying on Geralt's blade.</p><p>It sours something in his stomach—that other people's sons and lovers went off to fight and die in the mud of Caingorn, while Geralt had the luxury of keeping Jaskier safely tucked away in Kaer Morhen, far from harm. There's a nauseous feeling of injustice to it, that Geralt gets to murder those young men and still come home to this, to comfort and pleasure and Jaskier's artless adoration.</p><p>“War is a terrible story,” he says quietly. At his side, he feels Jaskier go still. “It was a stupid king, and a stupid war, and people died who didn't have to. It wasn't <em>heroic, </em>or—”</p><p>He catches himself at the anger starting to creep into his voice, because this is <em>Jaskier </em>he's talking to—Jaskier, who's only ever sung the truth, who's never tried to glorify that senseless violence.</p><p>“Just...” Geralt forces his grip to loosen, and rubs his thumb apologetically over Jaskier's wrist. “Fucking <em>kings</em>.”</p><p>As long as he lives, Geralt will never understand the minds of such men—how they can send thousands to the grave for the sake of their selfish ambitions, without an ounce of guilt or remorse.</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says in a small voice.</p><p>He sounds uncharacteristically subdued, which gives Geralt a twinge of guilt. He's the one who offered to tell Jaskier about the campaign, after all, he can hardly fault the bard for asking.</p><p>Geralt's drawing breath to apologize, or explain, when he catches sight of the look that's come over Jaskier's face—an odd, sudden stillness and a faint crease in his brow, like he's once again looking at Geralt and seeing straight through to the heart of him. His eyes have gone distant, and Geralt feels the tendons in his wrist twitch, fingers moving over a phantom fretboard to music that only he can hear.</p><p>Vesemir snorts at them. “Well, you've lost the bard—he's off composing again.”</p><p>Jaskier hardly registers that, just flutters his fingers at Vesemir in a distracted little wave, and then he's reaching for his pile of discarded clothes, stretching as far as he can while leaving his wrist in Geralt's possession.</p><p>And Geralt would have let go of him, because he knows by now that Jaskier might as well be a world of his own when inspiration strikes, but a moment later he's back, tucking himself into Geralt's side again. He has his note-taking apparatus, chalk clutched in his left hand and the slate precariously balanced against his knee, at an angle that's liable to send it sliding into the tub at any moment. It's charmingly impractical—which is Jaskier to a tee, really—the way he's juggling his slate wrong-handed while trying to stay close, trying to avoid any suggestion that he wants Geralt to let go of him.</p><p>And that means something, doesn't it? Geralt has been wondering if it's possible to ask-without-asking, if actions can speak for themselves, and maybe this is it. That even with this thing between them too fragile to be acknowledged aloud, Jaskier is still showing, unmistakably, that this is where he wants to be.</p><p>Geralt winds up trading his grip on Jaskier's wrist for an arm around his waist, a maneuver that very nearly startles the bard into dropping his slate into the water—would have, if Geralt hadn't caught it. For a moment, Jaskier is frozen against his side, breath shallow and heartbeat pounding like mad. Then carefully, deliberately, he relaxes in the loop of Geralt's arm. He lets their bodies settle together comfortably, and tentatively resumes trying to write.</p><p>Jaskier's focus slowly eclipses his self-consciousness, until he's all but oblivious to Geralt's presence, contorting himself every which way in search of a position that will keep his slate steady and safely dry. He winds up slung over Geralt's shoulder with the slate laying on the ledge behind him; Geralt gamely keeps him upright with an arm around his waist, and lets himself drift off to the steady sound of chalk tapping near his ear.</p><p>Ciri eventually tires of the seal game—enough trips back-and-forth can exhaust even her boundless energy—and she leaves the ball with Eskel and swims back to Geralt. Eskel watches with a fond smile as she yawns and tucks herself under Geralt's free arm, looking amused by the sight of him with his hands full with both Jaskier and Ciri.</p><p>“Doing better?” Eskel asks quietly. He's keeping his voice low so as not to disturb them, even though Ciri could sleep through a cavalry charge, and Jaskier probably wouldn't notice one in this state.</p><p>“Yes. Thank you.”</p><p>The awful, keyed-up tension from the battle has finally loosened its grip on him, leaving his mind calm enough to let him just... have this.</p><p>Eskel nods, looking satisfied, and closes his eyes.</p><p>Fifteen years ago, Geralt would have never imagined that a moment like this could belong to him. He lived nearly a century with the understanding that his life would always be one of isolation and impermanence—a lesson hammered into him young, that he finds hard to unlearn even now. That even after a decade and a half, he's still occasionally seized with the disorienting sense that everything around him is a dream, and he's going to wake up to the cold, lonely reality of the Path once more. This contentment, this <em>happiness, </em>sits at odds with the conviction that he's not meant for these creature comforts; that he wasn't built to cherish.</p><p>And yet, inexplicably, here he is. With Ciri, with Jaskier, with Eskel—with a heart so laden with love that he doesn't know how he ever survived without it.</p><p>*</p><p>Geralt comes awake in one breath, but there's none of the instant clarity that he's used to, and he spends several cloudy moments orienting himself.</p><p>He's in his room—in Kaer Morhen, in his bed. Ciri is a warm ball curled up against his side, fast asleep, even though he remembers passing her off to Eskel after the baths and then dragging himself up to his quarters alone. The windows had been thrown open to air out the suite for his return, curtains pulled back to admit the thin afternoon sunlight, and he hadn't bothered to close them before collapsing into bed and immediately losing consciousness.</p><p>The windows are still open, but the sky outside is full black now, and the air drifting in is quiet and cold. The fog around Geralt's mind is slowly lifting, but he makes no effort to move, just lets himself lie there and breathe deeply in the stillness—watching his breath make wisps of white against the darkness, listening to Ciri's small snores. Outside, he can hear distant voices filtering up from the courtyard below, a brief, passing exchange before it returns to silence again.</p><p>He's surprised that he doesn't remember Ciri joining him; it's not the sort of thing he would expect to sleep through, but evidently he did. It's been a long time since she crawled into his bed for comfort, though she did it often when she was smaller and more easily spooked by the monster stories she'd cajole out of the other witchers. <em>There are a lot of scary things in this world, pup,</em> he'd said when she came to him for reassurance, since he couldn't exactly deny that the things with teeth were real. <em>But you're safe in Kaer Morhen. I promise that nothing can get to you here.</em></p><p>And apparently Geralt's subconscious has come to believe that too; that even asleep, he feels safe enough that he doesn't bother to wake when it's one of his people, in his home. Such complacency would have been unthinkable on the Path.</p><p>It's morning, he realizes—or it will be soon. The sky is still a canvas of pristine darkness, but in the air he can taste the incipient dawn. There's a low hum of wind ringing the horizon, a sound that always feels like anticipation, like waiting on the brink of something.</p><p>And, carrying distantly across the thin air, the plucked notes of a lute.</p><p>Geralt inhales out of habit, half-expecting to catch Jaskier's scent on the breeze too. All he gets is a lungful of clean mountain air, but he's fully awake now, and without thinking, he finds himself slipping out of bed. He tucks the furs snugly around Ciri, then finds his boots and quietly lets himself out of the room.</p><p>It's not hard to follow the sound, though he can't pick out the melody, not with only one note in three reaching him. It takes him down a level, to an eastern-facing rampart that overlooks the training courtyard, and beyond the curtain wall, the darkness of the mountain wilds like a swallowing void. He can hear the lute more clearly now, along with Jaskier's hushed voice, singing an old, old song that Geralt had thought was lost to time.</p><p>
  <em>My love is the wind in the mountains roaring,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The crash of the sky and the sea.</em>
</p><p>Geralt slows as he comes down the steps, lets himself steal a moment to watch. He can see the outline of Jaskier's figure, sitting on a bench below a skeletal pergola with his feet tucked up underneath him, lute in his lap. Above his head, the beams are tangled with decades' worth of woody vines; later in the season it'll be a canopy, lush and heavy with wisteria blossoms, but for now it's nothing but bare branches twisted against the starry sky.</p><p>
  <em>O love, let me live in your soul as it's soaring</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And make a home in my heart for thee.</em>
</p><p>In the dim starlight, with a song on his lips that's as old as these mountain lands, Jaskier seems ethereal and uncanny, more like a fae than a mortal youth. As if something vast and ageless moves through his music, the pull of it like a tidal swell drawing Geralt closer.</p><p>Perhaps this is what it feels like to be in the thrall of a siren's song—blurring the line between being unable to resist, and simply not wanting to.</p><p>Geralt descends the last few steps to the landing, letting his heels clunk audibly against the stones. Jaskier looks up sharply, the song immediately going silent, but then relaxes into a smile when he sees Geralt. He doesn't seem to mind the interruption, because he shifts without prompting to make space for Geralt on the bench.</p><p>Geralt takes a seat, feeling the old wood creak beneath his weight. The wind is stronger here, away from the shelter of the keep's walls, and it cuts through the linen of his shirtsleeves like a lash.</p><p>Jaskier is dressed for the weather—overdressed even, charmingly so—all but buried beneath a heavy coat and layers of thick sweaters, topped off with a lumpy, over-sized scarf wrapped around his neck and ears. Only his fingertips peek out from the ends of cut-off gloves, now moving lightly over the lute strings again.</p><p>“We missed you at dinner,” Jaskier says, sounding fond. “It was your turn to choose the song, but Triss said you needed to sleep yourself out.”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>Geralt and Triss don't agree on how much sleep witchers <em>need,</em> but he supposes it did no harm to let him indulge.</p><p>Jaskier lets the conversation lapse into companionable silence, carried by the quiet melody he plucks from his lute. After a time, a change comes over his scent, like the wind shifting direction, bringing with it a bitter, crushed-herb smell.</p><p>“I'm sorry about earlier,” Jaskier says, his voice soft.</p><p>Geralt looks at him, puzzled.</p><p>“When I was pestering you for details about the campaign.” He's keeping his eyes on his hands instead of on Geralt. “It was obvious you didn't want to talk about it. I should have let it be.” He gives a slightly self-deprecating laugh. “I know I can be... single-minded sometimes. Obnoxious, even, it's been said. You can always just tell me to leave you alone.”</p><p>“I don't mind,” Geralt says quietly. Because Jaskier <em>understands</em>; it's why Geralt was willing to offer it in the first place. “I just... don't know what you want me to say. We killed Kovir's soldiers until those who remained lost the will to keep fighting—that's all war ever is.” He shrugs, feeling the inadequacy of that, but unable to offer anything better. “Sorry. I'm sure there are others who can tell the story better than I can.”</p><p>Jaskier laughs a little. “Telling <em>stories </em>is my job. What I need are people who can tell me the truth.”</p><p>Silence settles over them again, gentler this time. Jaskier picks out a soft melody on the lute, an echo of the song from earlier, and lets his gaze wander over the dark horizon. Geralt listens to the wind in the valley below, and to the slow, steady rhythm of Jaskier's breathing, like ocean waves washing against a shoreline.</p><p>“The truth is that war is always terrible,” Geralt says at last. “It's terrible for the soldiers, and for the widows who have to bury them, and for the orphans they leave behind. War <em>makes </em>men terrible—it puts a sword in their hands and makes murderers of them all.”</p><p>He's aware that Jaskier's hands have gone still and silent.</p><p>“I've never wanted to make war.” It's not a secret, but in the hushed darkness between them, it feels like one. “I've only ever wanted to make it <em>stop.</em><em>”</em></p><p>It's a truth he's never spoken aloud before: that his greatest talent is one he takes no pride and no pleasure in.</p><p>Jaskier draws in a breath and he leans over to press their shoulders together. A gesture of comfort—as much as he dares to give, but less than he wants to, and the ache of longing in his scent makes Geralt's chest hurt.</p><p>“I've never been to war,” Jaskier confesses uncertainly, wrapping his arms around himself and hugging the lute to his chest. He doesn't feel ageless anymore, but terribly, painfully young. “I've never even been close to it. All I know is what I've read in books, and the songs that people sing. I don't know what it's like for real.”</p><p>“<em>Good.” </em>Geralt's throat feels tight, constricted around everything else he would say; <em>I'm glad you don't know what war is, </em>and, <em>I don't want it to touch you, ever.</em> “You deserve better than a life of violence.”</p><p>Jaskier bites his lip, his eyes somber and dark, then says, “So do you.”</p><p>Geralt, pinned by his gaze, finds himself unable to look away.</p><p>He wants to touch, so badly—he wants to reach across the small distance between them, to lay his thumb against Jaskier's lips and feel his breath, to trace his fingertips over the porcelain curve of Jaskier's cheek in the starlight.</p><p>He wants to say, <em>I killed a boy in Caingorn who looked like you. </em>The words sit heavy on his tongue.</p><p>He does neither, only looks away again at length.</p><p>The eastern sky is starting to lighten between the mountain peaks, just the barest hint of blue heralding the day to come. He can taste greenery, the new growth beginning to stir within the desiccated vines above their heads.</p><p>—And then Jaskier blows out a shuddering breath, as a full-body shiver wracks his frame. “F-fuck, sorry,” he manages, bringing up his hands to chafe at his arms.</p><p>“You're cold,” Geralt realizes, belatedly.</p><p>Jaskier huffs out a laugh through chattering teeth. “Yes, well, I understand this may come as news to you, but it is a <em>wee bit chilly </em>out here.”</p><p>Geralt catches Jaskier's hands in his; they're icy and stiff even beneath the knit of his gloves—probably the reason he stopped playing earlier—and Geralt rubs them between his palms, massaging warmth back into the pad of each cold fingertip. “You should go back inside.”</p><p>It's almost time for the six o'clock bell anyway, when the kitchens will start serving breakfast and Geralt will have to get to work.</p><p>“In a bit,” Jaskier agrees, but makes no attempt to take his hands back even though he's still trembling with cold.</p><p>“Oh, for—you're as ridiculous as Ciri,” Geralt mutters. He stands, grabbing a handful of the back of Jaskier's coat and tugging him upright. “Come on, back inside before you freeze.”</p><p>Jaskier heaves a wistful sigh, but lets himself be pulled to his feet and steered back toward the castle, staying close so as not to dislodge Geralt's hand from his back.</p><p>They enter into a dim, narrow corridor—still cold, but warmer for being sheltered from the wind—and come to a stop. One direction leads off toward Jaskier's living quarters, where he'll shed his layers and get dressed for the day; the other leads down to the dining hall and Geralt's office. Geralt is aware that they're both lingering, delaying the inevitable moment when they have to go their separate ways.</p><p>He makes himself step back, and gives Jaskier a nod. “See you at supper.”</p><p>“If not sooner,” Jaskier agrees with good humor. “Oh, and don't forget—you're still picking the song tonight. Ciri says you're not allowed to skip your turn again, so you'd better think of something to ask for.”</p><p><em>Whatever you'd choose for me,</em> he thinks.</p><p>Geralt has never really cared what Jaskier sings; the music itself is immaterial, what makes it precious is that Jaskier's the one singing it, that Jaskier hoped to make him happy with it.</p><p>He starts to draw breath to speak, feels it catch in his throat. After another moment of silence, he says quietly, “Sing what you want me to hear.”</p><p>He's not sure if Jaskier knows what he's asking for; he's not sure that <em>he </em>knows what he's asking for.</p><p>A sign, maybe. Because yes, he knows how Jaskier <em>feels, </em>but he doesn't know what Jaskier <em>wants,</em> and there are still many ways this story could end.</p><p>He hears the bard inhale softly. “That one's... not quite ready yet.” Jaskier's voice is so soft that it's nearly inaudible over the pounding of his heart. Like he's feeling his way across thin ice, afraid to even breathe too hard lest it crack. “I want to make sure I get it right.”</p><p>Geralt nods, not trusting his voice or his words.</p><p>And Jaskier flashes him one last sweet, bright smile, and goes.</p><p>*</p><p>It's a week before the Griffins get back and Kaer Morhen can celebrate their victory with a proper feast. The last of the wounded had already finished healing up days ago; it was Letho who'd taken the worst injury of the lot—ironically, not from Kovir's troops, but from a werewolf he'd stumbled over in the hills by accident.</p><p>Geralt makes it to the hall ahead of the supper bell, for once, and sees Jaskier and Yennefer already seated, with Jaskier in Eskel's chair and draped halfway across Geralt's empty place setting to talk to her.</p><p>“—honestly, I'm feeling a rather scathing comedy for this one,” Jaskier's saying as he gets close enough to hear. “The idiot king of Kovir and how he manages to fuck up <em>literally</em> everything he does.” He lifts his chin and declaims, <em>“</em><em>The Wolf's swift sword did pierce his heart / he felt its fatal sting / And as Alfons died, the witcher said-- / ‘Oh shit, was that the king?’”</em></p><p>Yennefer gives a very unladylike snort, has to press her hand to her mouth to keep from spilling wine down her front. “Oh gods. Please say you'll do that part in Geralt's voice.”</p><p>“Yes. That is exactly how it happened,” Geralt deadpans, sliding into the seat between them.</p><p>Jaskier beams at him. “Pure coincidence, I assure you—so you'd best plug your ears, because the rest of this song is going to be a work of <em>unmitigated </em>slander. Alfons is going to have venereal diseases the world hasn't even <em>heard</em> of yet. When I'm done, his name will be a byword for bad decisions. Drunks will say, 'Hold my ale and watch this, I'm gonna do an Alfons!'”</p><p>“Hm,” Geralt says, amused despite himself. “See if you can smear the sister too. I don't want her building a power base in exile.”</p><p>Jaskier's eyes light up at this encouragement. “Oh, you'll have to tell me all about her! Is she a horrible scold? Does she have a harelip? No wait, scratch that—I imagine there are plenty of perfectly lovely people with a harelip who don't deserve to get caught in the crossfire. Does she—”</p><p>“She's a cloying little sycophant who thought that waving her cleavage in my face would persuade me to give her Kovir.”</p><p>Which is <em>slightly </em>bending the truth, given that low-cut bodices are simply the current fashion in Lan Exeter, but it's worth it for the surge of possessiveness it provokes from Jaskier. The bard is <em>affronted</em> at the idea of this woman attempting to seduce Geralt, puffing himself up like a disgruntled songbird, and Geralt feels almost sorry for Doloreta and the defamation that she's in for now.</p><p>“Well!” Jaskier says, bristling with indignation. “I can <em>certainly </em>make it known what a manipulative little coquette the Koviri princess—oh! Eskel!”</p><p>He immediately scrambles to vacate Eskel's chair, but Eskel isn't bothered, simply takes Jaskier's chair instead and claps a heavy hand on the bard's shoulder to sit him back down. “No one'll notice,” Eskel says breezily. “We're practically twins. What's this about the Koviri princess?”</p><p>On his other side, Yennefer huffs a laugh as she helps Ciri get settled into her chair. “Our dear wolf has learned the fine and subtle art of <em>scheming,” </em>she says, shooting Geralt a sly look over Ciri's head, one that encompasses both slandering Doloreta and deliberately riling Jaskier's jealousy. “I'm so <em>very</em> proud of him.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Geralt agrees distractedly. His attention is on Jaskier at his elbow, pressed closer in the shuffle to get everyone seated, and conscious of Jaskier's attention fixed sidelong on <em>him.</em></p><p>“Well, I seem to be moving up the table at a brisk clip,” Jaskier remarks as the servants start distributing platters of food. He flashes a playful smile at Geralt. “You should watch out, it's your chair I've got my eye on next.”</p><p>Geralt raises an eyebrow at him. “Warlord Jaskier, first of his name?”</p><p>“I promise to be a benevolent dictator,” Jaskier assures him brightly.</p><p>On his far side, Eskel snorts a laugh, then schools his face into perfect innocence and gives Jaskier a nudge. “Well, go on, then. I'm sure that chair can carry two.”</p><p>“Ah...” Jaskier stammers, his cheeks reddening as his eyes dart between Geralt's face and his lap.</p><p>Ciri cranes her head to peer over the arm of Geralt's chair, frowning judgmentally. “Jaskier is <em>much</em> too big to sit in your lap,” she declares, like she thinks they're all being intolerably silly. “Probably.”</p><p>Behind her, Yennefer stifles a laugh that transmutes into a cough.</p><p>“—Aha, bluff called,” Jaskier squeaks, taking the opportunity to hide behind a deep swig of ale. The conversation—to his evident relief—moves on to other things.</p><p>The food is excellent that night, a cut above the usual as the kitchens pull out their best for the celebrations—endless platters of roast pork and tender, slow-cooked venison, glazed carrots and smoked cheese, sweetbreads stuffed with cream and poppyseed. Geralt watches Jaskier enjoy himself, listening to his small, appreciative noises as he samples everything on the table, and lets Ciri stuff herself with far more sweets than he would ordinarily allow.</p><p>“Are you performing tonight?” Geralt asks as the meal is winding down. Jaskier has unslung his lute from the back of his chair and settled it in his lap, picking out soft little melodies to himself and adjusting the tuning pegs.</p><p>Jaskier smiles and inclines his head, courtly and flirtatious. “If it please you, O Great White Wolf.”</p><p>Geralt rolls his eyes at the epithet, but says indulgently, “It does.”</p><p>The bard goes a bit pink at that, startled and pleased. “Yes, well.” He runs through a scale on the lute that sounds like a fidget. “You say that, but you may want to withhold judgment until you've heard what I'm debuting.”</p><p>And he's a little nervous, the way he always is when he's unveiling a new piece, but it's a bright and excited sort of nervousness.</p><p>“<em>The Idiot King of Kovir?” </em>Geralt hazards.</p><p>Jaskier laughs. “Please, not even I work that fast. No, this is... one I've been working on for a while. It's—” He draws a breath and lifts his eyes to Geralt's, the look on his face almost painfully unguarded. “It's a song I want you to hear.”</p><p>Geralt feels his heart climb into his throat, and can only nod.</p><p>Jaskier bites his lip, hesitating as if he might say something more, but then he just flashes Geralt a smile and gets up to take his place at the center of the hall. Sometimes he spends a fair bit of time chatting up the audience before he starts, to gather their attention and get them fired up for the performance, but this time he's content just to strum softly and wait for the hall to quiet on its own.</p><p>When the noise has died down and all eyes have come to rest on him, he draws himself up, straight and elegant.</p><p>“Witchers of Kaer Morhen,” he says simply. He pauses, and then his gaze flicks unerringly to Geralt. “This is for you.”</p><p>His hands on the strings begin to pick out an unfamiliar melody, something low and gentle, but with an undercurrent of unease. When he starts to sing, soft as a lullaby, the imagery is of refugees washed up on a dark and frightening foreign shore, and it takes a moment for Geralt to realize that he's singing about—of all things—the Conjunction of the Spheres.</p><p>It's beautiful, of course, even though Geralt doesn't understand why this is the song Jaskier wanted him to hear. The melody is Jaskier's own work, but done in the style of some of the oldest songs on the continent, conjuring up a world primordial and savage, when humans were a beleaguered race living in constant fear of the dark—nothing but prey for the terrifying creatures that lurked beyond the edges of their campfires. Geralt doesn't remember what it felt like to be human, to be afraid like one, but briefly, he thinks he can imagine it—like the moment in a fight when you realize you're outmatched, alone with the monsters swarming on all sides, and the absolute certainty that you won't get out alive. He may not know fear, but he knows that feeling.</p><p>It's the mages who give humanity a fighting chance, pooling their resources in an attempt to create a defender for the people—though Jaskier's song gives them no honors. Their primitive magic is dark and volatile and bloody, leaving a mountain of broken corpses in its wake and sacrificing too many, too readily, to ever be truly justified. There's no glory in their work, no paeans praising the mages' ingenuity; their actions are nothing but the mindless thrashing of an animal in a trap.</p><p>
  <em>Such wicked deeds would daylight shun, yet in the darkness thrive,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For desperate men do desperate things, in the struggle to survive—</em>
</p><p>A thousand years separating Geralt from those nameless victims, but for one brief, vivid moment that feels his breath freeze, the bridge between past and present collapses, and he's back on that table in the cells below Kaer Morhen—eyes straining blind against the darkness, listening to the screams around him grow raspy and weak and finally trail off into silence, one by one.</p><p>He's aware of his breathing gone tight, nails digging into his palm; he makes himself unclench his hands and release the tension in his chest.</p><p>In the song, the situation is growing increasingly grim as the mages meet with failure after failure, and humanity's hopes dwindle. The melody stretches, seems to thin, tapering off to nearly nothing as the future of the human race teeters on a knife's edge.</p><p>And then—</p><p>One man survives.</p><p>The first witcher, his name lost to history, rises from the bloodbath that left all his brothers dead and finds himself changed into something the world has never seen before—something with the soul of a man, but gifted with abilities that even he barely begins to comprehend.</p><p>He is alone, set apart now from the rest of humanity. He feels grief—for the brothers he lost, for his own life stolen. He feels <em>anger</em> toward those who put him through so much pain, but—</p><p>But he sees people suffering when he could save them, and so he does.</p><p>Because this is what witchers <em>are, </em>the song is saying, it's what they've always been—the ones who willingly put themselves between mankind and the monsters. And as their ranks slowly begin to swell, each new witcher makes that same choice: that they will use their uncanny gifts to protect those weaker than themselves. Not for riches or glory, but because the world has need of them and they will answer the call.</p><p>Witchers are forged in pain, unavoidably; there's nothing that could make the trials less terrible, and Jaskier doesn't try. Instead, he gives a <em>purpose </em>to their pain—he transmutes their blood and tears and screams, the crucible that makes them what they are, into a sacrifice they give for the sake of all the world.</p><p>It's not a destiny that any of them chose, and the song acknowledges the injustice of that—but what they <em>did </em>choose, each and every one of them, was to rise to that fate without flinching. They did not buckle under pain and hardship, did not succumb to rage or despair; they survived and came back stronger, with integrity and purpose.</p><p>(Geralt wonders if Jaskier realizes that's true of him too—that he was as unwilling a sacrifice as any child ever given to the witchers of Kaer Morhen, yet he also took that unwanted destiny and turned it into something greater.)</p><p>It is, Geralt suddenly understands, the first song Jaskier's written that's not <em>about</em> witchers—it's <em>for </em>them. This is a song that belongs fiercely to Kaer Morhen itself, and when he sings of the witchers, he's singing not of <em>them, </em>but <em>us. </em></p><p>It's a song that invites them to be proud of their history, of their calling, of what they are and what they've accomplished. It's a song of brotherhood and honor, that lets them hold their heads high and sing out the chorus like an oath, like an affirmation of their purpose. And as the witchers join in one by one, he can hear their resolve ringing through the hall.</p><p>Geralt feels his lips shaping the words along with the rest of them, and there's a sting in his eyes and an ache in his chest that he can't explain—as if something that's been bottled up and buried for too many decades is suddenly struggling to the surface. It's all the words he wishes he'd had back when he was trying to convince the other witchers to join his cause, the scream trapped inside him that felt like it would shatter every bone in his body if it ever broke free, that said, <em>this is what we are, this is what we were meant to be.</em></p><p>It feels like more than his heart can hold, the way Jaskier can reach into his soul and give a voice to the inarticulate storm of feeling within—seeing the witchers so clearly and singing the truth of them, unflinching in the face of all their terrible grief, and pride, and resolve.</p><p>Then the song shifts once more, into the familiar melody that Geralt knows as <em>him.</em> Because as the inhuman monsters slowly grew more scarce, Geralt was the one who reminded the witchers that their purpose remained unchanged—that they were still meant to shield the innocent from harm, <em>any </em>harm. Geralt was the one who took a stand and said, <em>We will protect </em><em><b>everyone, </b></em><em>we will suffer nothing and no one to prey on humanity.</em></p><p>And the witchers swore to it.</p><p>As Jaskier brings the song to its finale, it's with the vow that witchers will always protect those in need, will defend the powerless, will be a place of sanctuary for those whom the rest of the world has betrayed and abandoned.</p><p>He lifts his gaze above the sea of faces then, seeking out Geralt, and in the moment when their eyes meet it hits Geralt like a lightning-strike that Jaskier isn't talking about some abstract victims—he means himself.</p><p><em>You saved me,</em> are the words behind the words, the message in his eyes as he holds Geralt's gaze, at once intense and vulnerable. And it's not about gratitude or obligation, because any debt between them has been long since paid; it's that Geralt is the kind of man who didn't hesitate to give mercy and charity to someone he owed neither, without expecting anything in return—and Jaskier loves him for it.</p><p>The song ends, and no sooner has Jaskier taken a bow than he is absolutely <em>mobbed,</em> nearly lost in the sea of witchers converging on him in their outpouring of rough, physical affection. Geralt finds himself on his feet too, drawn by a magnetism that has him pushing his way through the crowd before he even realizes what he's doing.</p><p>“—watch the lute, watch the lute!” he hears Jaskier saying as he draws closer, a note of real alarm mingled with his elation. Jaskier has the instrument clutched protectively to his chest, but his smile is incandescent as he's bounced about in the scrum.</p><p>Geralt can feel the moment fixing itself in his memory—Jaskier, glowing with joy at the center of the celebration, and never more beautiful. It gives him pause, suddenly uncertain how to approach, how to insert himself into that scene.</p><p>Over the fray, Lambert's eyes catch his; Lambert raises a significant eyebrow, and then when Geralt doesn't do anything, he rolls his eyes, plants a hand in the middle of Jaskier's back, and gives him a shove that sends him stumbling into Geralt.</p><p>Geralt catches Jaskier, steadies him, and then shoots a warning glare at Lambert. “No breaking my bard.”</p><p>Lambert just grins back, unrepentant.</p><p>In his arms, Jaskier gives a shiver of pleasure at the words. Geralt can feel the warm breath of Jaskier's laughter against his cheek, and the faint sheen of sweat coming off his skin that tastes like summer. Jaskier rests a hand on Geralt's chest, leaning into that embrace, then lifts his head to look at him full-on, radiant in his elation.</p><p><em>You know me, </em>Geralt thinks again, feeling caught by Jaskier's gaze, <em>you <b>see </b>me.</em></p><p>He can still feel the echoes of the song in him, and he wishes, desperately, that he knew how to convey to Jaskier what this <em>means </em>to them—because Jaskier is clearly thrilled with the song's reception, but he doesn't seem to understand the magnitude of the gift he's given them. To be seen, to be heard, to be granted the kind of respect that they've never dared believe themselves worthy of; it feels like a benediction, like the cleansing of a long-held shame.</p><p>And it's something akin to a miracle, that the man in his arms could know him so profoundly and still look on him with such open joy.</p><p>The movement of the crowd jostles them again, bumping Jaskier forward and nearly crushing the lute between them. Geralt slips a protective arm around his waist and steers him out of the crush, reluctantly letting go once they're safely back at the high table.</p><p>“Are you hurt?” he asks, as the bard gingerly releases the lute from his protective hold and checks it over for damages.</p><p>Jaskier laughs and strokes the instrument. “For a wonder, no—and my lute's not even dented. I must confess, I didn't think it was going to elicit <em>quite</em> that level of response.”</p><p>Geralt swallows. “It's a good song,” he says roughly.</p><p>Jaskier looks up at him, startled but hopeful, with a touch of lingering vulnerability. “Very accurate?” he asks, like a private joke between them.</p><p>“Very <em>good,</em>” Geralt corrects softly. It's so much more than that, more than Geralt has the words to say; he's still clumsy with praise, unaccustomed to the idea that his good opinion could mean so much to someone. He draws a breath. “I—”</p><p>“HEY, BARD!” someone shouts. “YOU GONNA EARN YOUR KEEP HERE, OR WHAT?”</p><p>Jaskier startles, jerking back a bit from where he'd drifted closer, and Geralt hears someone else hiss, “Shut <em>up,</em> they were about to kiss!”</p><p>“Ahh...” Jaskier hesitates, looking torn as he glances between Geralt and the heckler. “You know what, I think it's a night for dancing,” he decides. He slips Geralt a small, private smile and then waves to the other witchers. “Move the tables aside, I'll play from up here!”</p><p>The word goes out, and the tables are quickly shifted to make space. Jaskier returns to his earlier seat, giving Geralt a look that's clearly hoping he'll follow, and strikes up a fast, jaunty tune that gets people on their feet immediately.</p><p>Geralt would have gladly stayed at Jaskier's side, but no sooner has the song started than Ciri is there, tugging at his hand and urging him onto the dance floor. And though he wouldn't refuse Ciri this, he does exchange a brief, rueful smile with Jaskier as he's pulled away.</p><p>The bard was right, it is a good night for dancing. It's a night of celebration—not just for their victory, but for being home, for <em>having</em> a home. Celebrating everything that's good in their lives, music and food and fellowship, an expansive joy given physical expression as the witchers and their partners whirl across the dance floor.</p><p>Geralt dutifully partners with Ciri for a few reels, and then when she joins some of the keep's other children in a circle, he slips away and goes back to the Wolf table. Jaskier's in the middle of a jig, so he can't stop, but he looks up and smiles at Geralt's approach. Geralt lets himself lean against the bard's chair, resting his arms on the back as he relaxes and looks out across the hall.</p><p>It settles something in his chest, to see his people alive and <em>happy. </em>Because he's the one who led them here, and the ramifications of that still terrify him sometimes, but right now, seeing them alight with pride—in themselves, in what they've accomplished—he doesn't feel like he made a mistake. In this moment, everything feels worth it.</p><p>Jaskier finishes the song, and takes the opportunity to give his fingers a break and wet his throat.</p><p>“Done with dancing, already?” he asks, tipping his head back so he can smile up at Geralt.</p><p>It makes his hair brush against the back of Geralt's hand, soft and smelling like chamomile oil, and Geralt has to fight the urge to run his fingers through it.</p><p>“I only do it to make Ciri happy,” he admits honestly.</p><p>That makes Jaskier's smile widen, soft and fond, then he drops his eyes and plays a short, pleased-sounding little sequence on the lute. “Well then. Can't say I object to having you to myself.”</p><p>He nudges his head against Geralt's hand again, and this time Geralt gives in to temptation. He turns his hand over and lets himself nestle his fingers into Jaskier's hair, palm cradling the curve of his skull.</p><p>Jaskier gives a sharp, startled little hitch of breath and goes still, his heartbeat pounding and his scent spiking with excitement. Then, very carefully, he leans back into it, pressing into Geralt's touch, the air escaping him in a near-inaudible sigh of pleasure.</p><p>Geralt swallows, his mouth suddenly dry, and allows his fingers to drag through Jaskier's hair, feeling the glossy locks slide between them. And Geralt had thought it enticing enough before, stealing playful touches from each other in the baths, but gods, it is something else entirely to be allowed to touch, <em>invited </em>to touch, with Jaskier smelling like <em>this.</em></p><p>Geralt twines a lock of hair between his fingers, rubs gently at the skin of Jaskier's temple, and at then at the bard's subtle encouragement, traces an arc behind his ear that ends with Geralt's fingers curling against the nape of his neck.</p><p>“I—” Jaskier begins breathlessly. “I—ought to—” He makes a small gesture toward the dance floor, where people are milling about while they wait for the next round of music. “Keep playing. Before they riot.”</p><p>Which is fair, if disappointing, so Geralt starts to withdraw, only for Jaskier to catch his elbow with light fingertips. The bard wets his lips and adds quietly, “But you don't have to stop.”</p><p>It's strange to have permission, to be <em>acknowledging </em>what they're doing. It makes Geralt feel oddly exposed as he settles his hand in Jaskier's hair again and resumes stroking, as cautiously as one would pet a strange cat. Jaskier strikes up a new tune, and eventually the self-consciousness eases as his focus gets swept up in the song, the fraught charge in the air between them relaxing into something companionable.</p><p>Geralt loses track of how long they stay like that; Jaskier keeps up a seemingly-endless stream of songs for dancing to, but he doesn't move and neither does Geralt—as if they're both afraid that if this moment is interrupted, they won't be able to get it back.</p><p>Jaskier's taking another break when Eskel arrives carrying a very sleepy Ciri, and Geralt reluctantly takes his hand out of Jaskier's hair to receive her. Ciri doesn't stir as they carefully transfer her from Eskel's arms to Geralt's, just gives a round little yawn like a kitten showing its teeth.</p><p>In the absence of a bard, the witchers have taken up a Skelliger sea shanty that's mostly shouting and stomping, and for the moment, no one is paying any attention to either of them.</p><p>Geralt looks over Ciri's shoulder to Jaskier, finds the bard watching him with apprehension and yearning written all over his face, before he ducks his head to busy himself with his lute again.</p><p>By rights, this is where the evening ends—when Geralt takes Ciri off to bed, and then usually retires himself instead of returning to the hall. And whatever fragile magic it was that created this space where they were allowed to <em>reach </em>for each other will be dissipated by morning.</p><p>Or—</p><p>Geralt draws in a breath and touches a hand to Jaskier's shoulder. “Coming?”</p><p>Jaskier looks up, wide-eyed and startled, but doesn't need to be asked twice. He scrambles to his feet, unslinging the lute from his neck. He tucks it safely in its case, and then with a glance around the hall, leaves it on his chair and falls in after Geralt.</p><p>It feels almost clandestine, slipping out when no one's looking, with Jaskier shadowing close behind. And they don't speak, but as the noise of the hall dies away behind them and silence takes its place, he can feel the electric charge in the air between them building, anticipation like an indrawn breath. He's acutely conscious of every small sound, of Jaskier's pattering heartbeat and the quiver of his breathing.</p><p>Jaskier accompanies him to Ciri's room, then hangs back in the doorway while Geralt tucks her into bed. As he rises and turns to leave, he catches a glimpse of the expression on Jaskier's face, a longing as he watches Geralt with Ciri. Then Jaskier smiles at him and moves aside, letting Geralt step out into the hallway and carefully close the door behind him.</p><p>And then all at once they're <em>alone</em> together—no audience of witchers, no sleeping Ciri. No more interruptions. Geralt feels his heartbeat rising again, at being here with Jaskier, with this great unspoken <em>thing </em>in the space between them, and all the possibilities spreading out before him, endless and paralyzing.</p><p>Jaskier punctures the tension with a breathy laugh. “Going to tuck me in too?” he jokes, his scent thrumming with avid uncertainty.</p><p>It's... an invitation, but one still wrapped in a layer of protective irony, ready to be laughed off if need be. It's <em>so close</em> to what Geralt wants to hear, but still not quite right.</p><p>He wants—no misunderstandings, no room for doubt.</p><p>“I could,” Geralt hears himself say.</p><p>And he would; he'd see the bard to his door and then walk away, if that's what Jaskier wants, if he still doesn't want to act on the pull between them. Flirting with Geralt doesn't obligate him to take it any further, but—</p><p>He remembers Jaskier's eyes finding his during the song, the message in it that he was willing Geralt to understand. The memory of Jaskier's soft hair under his fingertips, of Jaskier pushing into the touch. His hand on Geralt's arm, <em>You don't have to stop.</em></p><p>As if he too wants this to be real, not just a game anymore.</p><p>When Geralt takes a step forward, it feels like stepping up to the edge of a precipice. He hears Jaskier's breath catch in his throat as the distance between them closes, and lifts his hands to hover at Jaskier's sides. The shadowed pocket of air between them is small and quiet, tasting of anticipation and desire.</p><p>“Do you want me to put you to bed?” he asks quietly. He feels nakedly honest in the asking, in the breathtaking unfamiliarity of laying his own heart out for someone else to see. “Or... do you want me to <em>take</em> you to bed?”</p><p><em>Say you want this, </em>he thinks desperately, gripping the words as tightly as a prayer, <em>say you'll have me.</em></p><p>For a heartbeat there's nothing but silence. Then with a sharp inhale, Jaskier steps forward, decisively closing the last of the gap between them. His hands come up to grip Geralt's collar, a split-second's warning before he's pressing their lips together.</p><p>It takes Geralt a startled moment to register that this is truly happening—that Jaskier's mouth is on his, pressing kisses to his lips, tasting like hope and breathless daring. Then Geralt feels something unlock inside of him, a release of the rigid control that's been holding him in check, and he presses down into the kiss with an audible rumble from the base of his throat.</p><p>It's exquisite, and almost unfathomable—overwhelming, to have Jaskier in all his senses, the feel of his body crushed tight against Geralt's chest, the taste of him on Geralt's tongue, the smell of his unconstrained desire. It's everything he's fantasized about, and yet none of his fantasies ever held a candle to the reality of having Jaskier in his arms.</p><p>Jaskier breaks away, panting, his shoulders heaving beneath Geralt's hands.</p><p>“Take me to bed,” he gasps out. He shudders into a breathless laugh, bubbling over with delight and disbelief, and Geralt can't resist the urge to put his mouth to the exposed line of his throat. He lays a trail of kisses, nipping gently, feeling Jaskier's laughter vibrating against his lips as the bard tips his head back, welcoming it. <em>“Fuck,</em> Geralt.”</p><p>His arms come up to enfold Geralt's head in a loose embrace, rocking against him for a moment before letting go. When he draws back, his gaze is soft, full of wonder. He leans forward again, eyes open as he lays a gentle kiss on Geralt's lips.</p><p>“Take me to bed,” he murmurs.</p><p>And it's all that Geralt has been waiting for.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you all for reading! And thank you to inexplicifics for her delightfully inspiring stories and her incredible generosity when it comes to letting other people play in the sandbox of her creation. As far as this AU goes, I have told the story I set out to tell and I won't be writing more, <i>BUT—</i></p><p>If you liked the cut of my jib—or if you like broody protagonists who don't emote well but are pining <i>hard</i> for their sweet-n-swishy foil of a love interest, working through trauma and navigating consent in the slowest of burns—then you might also enjoy my actual magnum opus, <i><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619036/chapters/26123667">A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.</a></i></p><p>Yes, it's a Dream Daddy fic. No, you don't need to have played the game in order to read it. (Although <i>man oh man,</i> you should—you are in for a <i>fuckin' treat,</i> my friends.) Go on, give the first chapter a spin. I'm just real proud of it, is all. :)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://abeautifulblog.tumblr.com/post/640868599888756736/for-the-asking-directors-commentary">There is now a DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY if you'd like a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the fic.</a>
</p><p>  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245747">I did a thing to entertain myself while I was writer's-blocked, if you want more of this except with Gweld and Serrit instead.</a></p><p>  <a href="https://abeautifulblog.tumblr.com/post/624645987114369024/for-the-asking-the-witcher-tv-archive-of">And of course, I would be eternally grateful if you'd like to spread the good word on tumblr!</a></p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29972244">[Podfic] For the Asking</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers">AceOfTigers</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
</body>
</html>